Chapter Twelve - Insomnia

I couldn't sleep.

I turned over on my side for what had to be the millionth time and looked at the clock with bloodshot eyes. The bright, glaring numbers told me that it was now nearly three thirty in the morning. This was pathetic. I'd gone to bed at eleven. Three o'clock had marked the four hours I'd been wide awake.

How would I be able to survive in school, which was a mere four hours away? I'd probably fall asleep in Biology and be pronounced dead when they'd try to wake me up and fail. Ugh. And I had a huge test to take, too.

I didn't know why I could not sleep. I was exhausted, but, at the same time, not in the least bit tired. During my preteenhood, I'd struggled with insomnia, but it had simply gone away after a while. Now, though, it was coming back at full force, and I hated it.

I stared at the ceiling and closed my eyes. Every time I did this, though, they snapped right open again, and this was the case this time. So, I tried to count sheep. But that didn't help either, and I finally had to resort to imagine fields of flowers, which I'd heard could aid someone when they were having trouble sleeping. Still I could not go to sleep, and I turned to look at the clock again. It was four in the morning.

Damn.

I was seriously considering banging my head into the wall to knock myself out when the answer came to me. It felt more like sleepwalking than anything else as I stood up and slowly edged out of the room. I was just noticing that the rain had stopped, which was an added bonus.After slipping on a sweater and a pair of shoes, not caring that I was still in my pajamas, I exited the house.

In the hopes that the fresh air might help to clear my head, I wandered around the neighborhood, feeling the wet, spongy ground beneath my feet. Everything dripped with rain, drops sparkling in the moonlight. It was eerily quiet, the only sounds being my shaking breaths and the waves crashing against the shore. It was a bit spooky, really, making me feel like a serial killer was about to jump out of the silence with a gun or something.

The dirt sank underneath me as I crept along. I wondered if anyone else in La Push ever did this, and, if so, who? There had to be another insomniac somewhere.

I yawned and nearly tripped over a stray vine while doing so. God, I was tired. Exhausted, really. If only I could just get to sleep. I sat down, getting rain all over me in the process and not caring, and tried to pinpoint the root of the problem. I thought I knew what it was, and try as I might to ignore them, the memories kept coming.

"Mommy?" I asked Ciara, tugging on her short black dress. My first day of second grade and she was ignoring me, as usual. What a wonderful mother. She totally deserved an award for her parenting.

"I'm busy right now," she said, applying what had to be her fourth layer of mascara. "Mommy's got a date, remember?"

"How come I don't have a daddy?" I questioned. She froze and gave me a distressed look. "A girl asked me where my daddy was today."

Ciara kneeled down and put a hand on my shoulder. "Don't you remember him?"

"No."

"Your daddy...he left...a couple of months ago...you've forgotten him?"

I nodded. "Why did he leave, Mommy?"

All of a sudden, Ciara scowled and stood up. "Because of you. Now shut up and stop asking me questions."

That stupid phone call had triggered all of this in the first place. Ugh.

I flipped through the bridal magazine, wishing that there was anything else in the house to read. There was a section called "Wedding of the Month" or something that consisted of random weddings (usually of rich people) being selected to be in the magazine, complete with a centrefold of wedding pictures and a tiny box in the top right corner that said whose wedding it was. When I looked at it now, it showed a huge wedding at some park with a bride and groom in obvious designer clothes. The bride's lipstick alone probably cost more than any house we'd ever lived in, but I wasn't interested in her. The groom caught my attention, mainly because there was something so familiar about him, his eyes especially.

With a start, I realized that I knew these eyes. They were my own.

Sean Pearson was the groom's name. This was on my birth certificate, listed under "Father." It was the same for Heather. And now here he was, five years after he'd left, happily married to a woman who was not my mother.

I ripped the pages out and promptly threw them in the garbage.

I knew almost nothing about my father. The only information I'd ever managed to squeeze out of Ciara was that he had left after claiming I was too much trouble to deal with. He'd done the same thing to Heather, but after a few weeks, he'd returned.

It was quite the opposite for me. I guessed I just wasn't worth Sean's time.

He was the one to call Heather, as I'd found out, though why, I had no earthly idea. He hadn't bothered to contact us ever since he'd left, so why was he now? It made no sense. I still had yet to wrap my head around it.

I thought back to Heather's conversation with Sean. From what I'd heard, he had a problem with some girl. Huh. Why was he calling Heather for advice? He didn't give a crap about either of his daughters, and suddenly he was talking to us. Something was obviously up, but I just couldn't figure out what it was.

I felt a hollow kind of echoing emptiness as I recalled Ciara's words from so long ago. Because of you.

Because of me.

It didn't exactly count, as Ciara hated me and had a goal to grind my self-esteem into the dirt, but still. Sean was no longer a part of our family because I was just so demanding. Heather and I didn't have a dad and Ciara didn't have a boyfriend all due to me. It was my fault that we weren't the happy family we were supposed to be, my fault that our futures came crashing down so early.

Suddenly, I felt like I couldn't breathe. The air pressed down from all sides, suffocating me as I gasped. Only one thought among the sudden hysteria was clear: I had to get out of here.

I stood up and scrambled along the plants, feeling the unknown enemy trying to drag me back down. My vision was blurred as panic crept up on me. Every warning signal my mind had to offer was on full blast, telling me to calm down, but the anxiety had swallowed me long ago and a breakdown was mere seconds away.

I should have known.

The night was so still and quiet, so dark, that I couldn't help but feel as though something was lurking in the nearby shadows. I felt the strange kind of freeze I always got whenever this happened begin at my toes and slowly move upward before I was completely engulfed in it. It was much like behing trapped in the smooth muscles of a python waiting to devour its savory meal.

These awful panic attacks were getting more and more common, but each time they crossed my path, it just got worse. They zapped away any strength I had as was happening now; I had reached someone's house and briefly considered making a run for my own before everything broke down. I frantically put my hands over my head and sank to the ground, whimpering.

The world's vibrant colors bled away under my teary gaze as I bit my lip and bore down, waiting for the big finale that never came. I wasn't strong enough to endure anymore and just hoped for it all to end and free me from this strange abyss. But I couldn't let that happen, I had to go on, at least to try...

But I couldn't.

All of my energy quickly escaped and I crashed against the rutted ground, curling up in a fetal position and closing my eyes. This was torture. Anything, even death, would be better than this. The tears squeezed their way onto my cheeks and stole every ounce of breath I had left. Hyperventilating was the worst thing I could do right now, but here I was, sobbing my eyes out as everything came tumbling down.

I don't know how much time passed before a warm pair of arms wrapped around me and lifted me from the ground. My head lolled against the person's chest and my tears leaked onto their shirt. I didn't care who it was, and sobbed to them, "It's all my fault...He's gone...My dad's gone..."

"Shh, it's okay," said a voice I recognized as Seth's soothingly. "Everything's fine."

A door opened and Sue shrieked, "Oh my God, what happened to her?"

"I don't know. I think she's hyperventilating or something." Seth set me down on something soft that I supposed was a couch and covered me with a blanket. Sue walked over with a damp rag and wiped my face off with it, removing the tears and dirt. I blindly grasped at thin air; then, with my hands meeting nothing, I desperately clawed at my arms, needing to move somehow before I shrivled up and froze. Sue gently held my hands in her own and had a firm grip as I fruitlessly tried to break away from her.

Seth and his mother mumbled things I couldn't hear, and eventually someone - I guessed Seth, as the hand was very warm - brushed my hair from my face. Sue said something else in a quiet voice, and I thought I heard "Poor girl." Ugh. Why was she feeling pity for me? I didn't need pity. I didn't want pity.

"Do you have anything important going on in your classes tomorrow? Any tests?" asked Seth.

I thought back to school, the last thing on my mind now. "No."

"You don't have to go if you don't feel like it," Sue offered. "If you want, you can stay here."

"Mmph." Now that most of the panic attack had gone away, I was starting to feel a bit...sad, I suppose you could say. Sad and embarrassed and tired. Oh, so tired. I felt like I was less than a second away from conking out. "Thanks," I said to Sue, after remembering I was talking to her.

"You look tired," she replied. "We'll leave you alone so you can get some sleep." She stood up and smiled at me, and, after a quick good-night, left the room.

"'Night, Willow," said Seth, trailing behind her. "If you have any problems or whatever, um, feel free to wake up me or my mom."

"Seth," I croaked. He turned around.

"Yeah?"

"Wait up. Talk to me." I didn't know what to say, but I had to get something out before I exploded. Seth willingly obliged and sat on the floor in front of me. After a moment, I said, with some difficulty, "What I was saying about my dad...it's...it..."

Seth waited patiently for me to continue.

"Well." I looked down at my fingers and resisted the urge to bite my nails, something I always did in an anxious situation. "It's true."

Seth looked at me with his calm eyes and asked, "How so?"

"Um, my dad...when I was about seven...he walked out on us after he said I was too much trouble to deal with and that he was tired of me. And it's because of me that Heather and I don't have a dad and Ciara doesn't have him and...it's my fault." I took a shaky breath, and Seth put his hand on my shoulder. "It's just hard to deal with, you know? I mean, everything could be easier with him around. We could actually live our lives and have futures. Be happy. And I had to ruin it all."

"Willow--" Seth began.

"I think that's part of my mom's problem," I went on, not paying attention to him. "I think since my dad left, she really needs support and keeps hooking up with guys to...fill up the emptiness, or whatever." I sat up and felt like I'd gotten hit by a train. "Like, I know it sounds really dumb, but she's all lonely because of my mistakes. And," I added, as Seth opened his mouth, "I know you're about to say 'It's not your fault because you were only seven and he's the one with issues,' but he really did say, 'I am so tired of Willow and I'm leaving for good.' He said my name. He said Willow."

Okay, maybe I was bluffing a bit, but still. Sean had left because of me. Say bye-bye to a normal life with a dad, because Willow screwed it up!

"Is there any way I can convince you that you're wrong?" Seth asked, sitting down next to me.

"No," I mumbled, sniffling and wiping my nose with the back of my hand.

"I lost my dad to a heart attack," he said. "I know what it's like to live without one."

Oh, my God. My heart went out to him. He looked so broken and lost that no words could be said. Nothing but words I was sure he was sick of hearing: "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay. There's nothing anyone can do about it. And anyway, I know Dad would want me to be happy, and that's all that matters. If I just get miserable over it, I'll be wasting my time, and I know he wouldn't want any of that."

I didn't know what to say.

"Anyway..." Seth said slowly, smiling, "do you want to talk some more? Because I don't know about you, but I'm about to fall over from exhaustion."

"Oh, right, go to bed. I didn't mean to keep you. Sorry."

"If there is one person in the world I like talking to, it's you. You don't complain on and on like some people I know...Leah," Seth added under his breath.

I laughed. "Well, thanks."

Seth smiled even wider, like I was cute, leaning forward slightly. Before I had time to react, he was kissing me. Seth Clearwater. Kissing. Me. On the lips.

Holy crap.

It was sweet but still satisfactory. He didn't try to push himself on me or get too rough, like some guys I'd had to deal with, and I liked that. I put my arm around his neck and wound my hand into his soft hair, pulling him closer. We sat there in what was my definition of "bliss" for a little while until we pulled away at the same moment. Well, at least our lips did; my arm was still around his shoulders, and his hand lay on my waist.

Seth grinned like a fool.

I grinned back.

"Now do you feel any better?" he asked.

"Very much so," I replied.

Seth hugged me close and kissed the top of my head. I felt a strange wave of...something that I couldn't name. Exhilaration? That would probably be the best word for it.

Exhilaration - (noun) The feeling of lively and cheerful joy.

Exhilaration, definitely.

Because right now, I felt happier than I'd ever been in my entire life.

Author's Notes: Oh God. I am crap at writing kissing scenes.
YAY FOR HORRIBLE CHAPTERS LIKE THIS ONE!!
Rock on!
Anyway. I hope you all liked that chapter. (: Even though my headphones just broke in half and I feel sick and I've got a nasty taste in my mouth and I'm exhausted, I just had to update. 'Tis a life calling.