Go to Sleep, You Little Babe
Orange light surrounded him.
Shit.
"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" Peter elected to ignore the figure walking towards him and kicked up some dust around his feet. He put his hands in his pocket and snorted. "Joke's on you. My mother's dead."
"Really? Dead mother jokes? Original dude." The figure stopped short of touching shoulders with Peter. Peter could practically feel him sigh next to him. He snapped his fingers and a bench appeared. Peter sat down first, and the figure followed. Peter kept his eyes on the ground, listening to the breeze that was rustling some leaves overhead.
The figure hesitated a second. "I don't want to keep doing this." Peter laughed humorously. "Then don't. I'm not making you." They slipped into silence for a few minutes (or days or centuries—time was always weird there), until Peter spoke again. “I mean, it wasn’t even my fault this time.”
The figure huffed. “This time. And I have to disagree. Running into a bullet headfirst might as well be the same as doing it yourself. You know as well as I do there were other ways to handle that situation.”
“Why is my subconscious such an asshole?”
“I’m not your subconscious.”
“You say that every time.”
“It’s true.”
Peter rolled his eyes and put his head in his hands. He started tugging rhythmically at his hair. “God. Is it too much to ask just to fucking sleep? To just stop all this—” he waved his hands absently, “—whatever it is. What’s wrong with you?”
The figure scoffed. “With me? What? Is this the fifth bullet, Pete? Sixth?”
“I wasn’t going to let him die.” Peter sounded petulant even to himself.
“No. No you weren’t, were you? Just yourself. Like always. You are such a—” The figure stopped himself with a frustrated growl. Peter noticed his hands clenching and unclenching. He went to grab them but the figure pulled away.
“Just. Just stop running this time, Pete. Please.”
Peter kept looking ahead, the orange landscape quickly becoming distorted. He pulled at his hair again, harder this time, and shook his head. “You know I can’t.” As the figure disappeared, the dust swirled, and Peter closed his eyes.
Ned shot out of bed. His sheets were soaked in sweat and he was breathing heavily. He grabbed his phone and unlocked the screen. Crack-ass of dawn, then.
He got up quickly, cursing his childhood home for its creaky floorboards, and stepped into the bathroom. After throwing up as quietly as he could, he rinsed out his mouth and stared at his reflection. His face was gray and his eyes were red with tears. He pinched his right cheek and then his left, grabbing a washcloth behind him to wipe off his face. His lola told him earlier that day that he had lost too much weight (“buto’t balat, mahal!”) and if his school couldn’t feed him on that “fancy scholarship” she would move to Massachusetts with him next semester. Looking in the mirror, he could see her point.
But for all the fussing and worrying he happily endured from his family, he couldn’t bring himself to tell them the truth. To tell them that, for the past eleven-ish months, he’d been waking up off and on, sick as a dog from remnants of a bad dream he could barely remember. They never really had a relationship like that—despite their protectiveness, Ned found himself alone more times than not. He wasn’t the type to make friends easily—before college, the only person he hung out with was MJ, and Michelle wasn’t really known for being the kind of friend to just spill everything to. She didn’t share the same interests (it was really a mystery how they became close in the first place—they ate lunch together, sure, participated in the same club, but he couldn’t quite remember how they evolved from that to actual friends) and she definitely didn’t have patience for things she deemed “nerd stuff.” And these dreams fell squarely into “nerd stuff.” But keeping this in didn’t seem to be working, either. He was the very definition of “spiraling” and the only other example he had of weird-ass, magic dreams was from Harry Potter.
There was a knock on the bathroom door that startled Ned out of his thoughts. He splashed some more water on his face and opened the door. His lola was standing on the other side with a cup of tea and a cookie. She ushered him over to the couch in their living room and covered him with his favorite quilt. There was an old Kool-Aid stain on the very edge of the blanket. Ned couldn’t remember how it got there, but it felt like it would have been a good memory.
“What’s wrong, mahal?” She pushed the cookie towards him and looked at the cup in his hand expectantly. He took a sip.
“Nothing, nanay.” She raised her eyebrows and made a clicking sound with her tongue. Giving him a searching look, she patted his knee. “When I was your age, I had a friend, Diwata. Diwata was like a sister to me. We went everywhere together. Shared food. Books. Boys.” She winked and Ned smiled. “One day, Diwata went to the mainland. She said she met a Navy sailor who promised to build her a pink house like the ones the movie stars from Hollywood lived in. I was so mad at her. We were supposed to be friends. Best friends. And she just left me. She wrote me tons of letters. Every week for years I’d get a letter from her. But I was so angry. And I let my anger grow and grow and then climbed that anger tree and refused to leave.” His grandmother smiled sadly. “The letters eventually stopped. And when I finally climbed down, I found out that Diwata had died. Breast cancer. They found a letter for me under her pillow and mailed it to me. It’s been six months and I still haven’t opened it.”
“Why are you telling me this, lola?” She patted his knee and wiped her eyes. “I just want to make sure you don’t stay in your tree too long. Whatever that boy did, it’s better to forgive him.”
Ned gaped at her. “I’m—I’m not sure I understand.” He took her hands. “What boy are you talking about?”
She laughed, “Don’t be a bobo, love. Your friend. The Star Warring friend. I don’t remember his name—my mind is getting old. He was over here every day it seemed. You went to college together, right? Just. Whatever he did, forgive him. You’re worrying yourself sick.” She patted him on the head and headed back towards her room. “Eat something, Eddie. Our family’s magic can do miraculous things, but it won’t cure an empty stomach.”
Ned watched her as she closed the door. His phone vibrated and he saw a text from MJ. Shaking his head as if to get rid of all his racing thoughts, he opened it up.
mjqueenbey: loser. wyd?
nedwardscissorhands: nothing.
i’m concerned lola may have dementia.
weird night.
wat up?
mjqueenbey: want to go on a trip?
nedwardscissorhands: where
mjqueenbey: stark called. m needs a babysitter.
nedwardscissorhands: omg. omg.
mjqueenbey: calm down.
nedwardscissorhands: it’s christmas, tho.
mjqueenbey: apparently something happened.
i didn’t ask.
he’s paying triple.
nedwardscissorhands: you ok?
mjqueenbey: are any of us?
nedwardscissorhands: m j
mjqueenbey: dad’s gone again. didn’t fancy spending the month in a shitty apartment by myself.
nedwardscissorhands: you could have come here.
mjqueenbey: well, now i can eat the rich. or at least his food. what do you say?
nedwardscissorhands: of course i’m coming. i’ll tell lola i’m climbing a tree or something
mjqueenbey: wat
nedwardscissorhands: anyone else would think i’m hilarious.
mjqueenbey: well let me know if you ever find this anyone else. i’d love to meet them. c u at 9.