Zachary
I sat in the corner of the nearly deserted café at midnight, drinking a cup of coffee—black with strictly one cup of cream—and reading a standard paperback novel to pass the time. There were only a couple of people left in here, strewn out among the tables. They were frequent visitors, an older guy, probably in his sixties, named Rob sat in the other corner. We’ve spoken once, he was nice you could say, but he wasn’t the most talkative, and mostly kept to himself. There was a girl, about my age, named Leah, sat in the middle of the room, drinking a soft frozen mocha, and staring at the wall. I’ve never actually talked to her, she kind of intimidated me. She was so serious. She had stick straight blonde hair and light blue-gray eyes that seemed to stare straight into your core. There were also some people that didn’t come often, that I didn’t pay much attention to.
I had been coming to that café for about two years. The first time I came, I was twelve. Yeah I know, a little too young to be coming to a restaurant in the middle of the night, and in the worst part of the neighborhood no doubt. Whether I was trying to escape my increasingly depressed mother, or my plethora of younger siblings, I can’t say. I just know that I needed to be alone for once, in a place that no one would bother me.
It wasn’t as though I didn’t love my mom, of course I did. I just wish she hadn’t lost herself so completely when dad died. She had been a wreck. That much I could understand at least. She had spent at least a month straight in her room, crying. Leaving only me to care for my two younger sisters and two younger brothers. My mom had always wanted a big family, it was a dream of both my dad and her. They did a good job of caring for us. Until I was eleven, when my dad died. My youngest sister, Sarah, was only three at the time. My mom just lost it. I had to give her credit, since she lost the love of her life, but she detached herself from all of us. It was like one second everything was fine, and I was part of a wonderful family, four happy siblings, two parents happily in love, and then it was all ripped away. My dad lost his life in a car accident, my mom shut herself away, my nine year old brother at the time, Jack, wasn’t as happy anymore.
Jack, luckily, never became a reckless kid like everyone expected him to be. He was loyal to me, and our siblings. He still loved our mother, no matter how insufferable she could be at times. He was the most enjoyable twelve year old to be around, such an energetic kid. There was also Rico, our little seven year old brother. And Rachel, who was nine. And of course Sarah again, who was then five.
Of course I loved my family. Each and every one of them, I just wished that I had at least a little help taking care of them. It was when I was twelve, about a month before I started coming to the café, that I became an insomniac. At least at night. I often found myself falling asleep for an hour or two during the hours of the day when everything was calm, but I could never get myself to fall asleep during the night. For the first month, I just laid in my bed, staring at the ceiling, and then I’d gotten into reading. I’d buy more and more books getting engrossed in the lives of fictional characters. Fictional characters that seemed to have worse lives than mine, but then they would get better, and I would be transported to another world, temporarily taken away from the mayhem that I called my life.
“Are you all finished dear?” A voice asked. I started and looked up into the smiling face of Sally, the waitress that worked the late hours at the café. She was forty at most, and was always kind, and talked to me daily.
I nodded and slid my cup and saucer over to her and she picked it up. She must have noticed the frown on my face because her brow furrowed and a concerned look came into her eyes.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I replied slowly, forcing a reassuring smile into my face. “Everything’s fine thanks.”
“If you’re sure,” she said looking skeptical. I just nodded mutely and she turned to walk away. “I’ll bring you a refill, free of charge. You look like you need it.”
“Okay, thanks Sally.”
She walked away and I dropped my eyes to the wooden table of the booth I currently sat at. I then proceeded to trace the patterns in the wood until I felt someone’s eyes on me. I looked up confused as to why someone would even want to look at me, I mean I wasn’t much to look at, and met the piercing blue-gray eyes of Leah. I jumped. Leah usually never looked at anyone. Never talked to anyone, never even interacted with anyone if she could avoid it. Maybe this is the reason I didn’t look away, or maybe it was because she was regarding me with an expression that looked almost like… pity. I didn’t have time to ponder exactly why she was looking at me that way, because just then Sally came and handed me another cup of coffee and when I thanked her and looked back at Leah, she was staring at the wall again, leaving me to wonder if the whole exchange had just been in my head.
I shook my head and picked up my book again. It was called The Giver. Normally, this kind of book wouldn’t be my kind of thing, because it was about this isolated community and they had the strangest way of going about different things, but I decided to give it a chance. It wasn’t the most interesting thing, I admit, but it was nice to have something different after a while of the same thing over and over again. You get bored every once and a while.
The bell over the door sounded, and I looked up to see another boy, roughly my age, maybe a year or so older, walking over to the counter. He ordered his drink in a very quiet voice, and he seemed timid. He had reddish brown hair, and he was tall and very skinny, as though he hadn’t eaten in while. As he got his drink and turned around, he saw me, and I gave him a small wave which he returned, and he sat in the table closest to the door and pulled out a Mac laptop. As he started to type away furiously, I turned my attention back to my book, and read for about ten minutes, before I got bored and put my bookmark in it and set it down. I pulled my now cool coffee towards me and added a small cup of cream and taking a sip. It was a little too cold for my liking but it would do, as I didn’t want to trouble Sally by asking for another cup, as she was talking animatedly on the phone behind the counter in hushed tones.
I sighed and looked up at the brown haired boy again. He had stopped typing and was staring straight ahead of him, like he was pondering something extremely important. After about five minutes of staring, I realized what I was doing and blushed and looked down. I wasn’t one to stare, I usually kept my attention away from people, as I was home a lot and taking care of my brothers and sisters, my social life had gone downhill. I wasn’t popular by a long shot, and was constantly ignored. It was better than being made fun of, but anything would be better than people acting like I didn’t even exist. So, with nothing better to do, I immersed myself in school, keeping my grades up and being the ideal student. I answered questions when I was called on—which was very little—and I always turned in my homework on time. But it was a lot for a fourteen year old boy to handle. I was just starting high school, where being part of the inner circle, the “In Crowd” was everything. It didn’t matter if you were smart, or were even a good conversationalist. It only mattered about looks and confidence and how you carried yourself. If you were like me, you were a lowlife.
Jack was always telling me how if any girl in his grade even walked by our house, they would look for me, saying they loved how I looked, like I had that “Mysterious and guarded” vibe or whatever girls say about guys they had crushes on. I for one would’ve been clueless as to what the heck they were talking about if I hadn’t read so much. Sometimes I would think about what they said about me, and look in the mirror. I would see my way too long dirty-blonde hair that hung in my eyes and just reached my shoulders, my smoldering green eyes that burned with intensity even when I wasn’t trying. I didn’t see how I would be considered mysterious though. I only saw myself as everyone else saw me, the shy, scrawny kid that no one paid any attention to. That wasn’t even worth anyone’s time or effort.
I was pulled back to the present when I accidentally spilled some of the coffee down my shirt. I cursed softly under my breath and quickly got a napkin off the table and wiped it off, thanking whatever outside force that had compelled me to wear a black shirt that day. Once my shirt was dry, I looked up and met the eyes of the brown haired boy again—they were also brown—and saw that he was watching me with amusement. I stared at him blankly for a moment before finishing the last of my coffee, and putting the now crumpled up napkin into the cup and returning it to its place at the end of the table. When I looked back up, I saw that he was still staring at me, before he beckoned me over with a twitch of his hand.
For a moment I just stared, dumbfounded. There was actually someone that was willing to invite me to sit with them, inviting me over of their own accord. At first I thought that I had imagined it, and that it was just my mind playing tricks on me so that I wouldn’t feel like such a loner, until he did it again and shot me a meaningful look. I nodded and put my book in my backpack that was sitting in the chair next to mine, and walked over to his table and sat down across from him.
If I were to sum up the first minute that I sat there in one word, it would be awkward. Neither of us said anything to each other, and the boy had returned to typing on his computer, giving me a chance to really look at him. Up close, I could see that his eyes were hazel, not just brown, and that he had freckles all across the bridge of his nose. He was wearing a plain white t-shirt and jeans, and a pair of old sneakers. Eventually, he looked up and stuck his hand out to me.
“Hi.” He said. “I’m Mac.”
I hesitated a moment, trying to make sure that he was serious, and not just pulling my leg, and when the situation continued to look promising, I reached over and clasped his hand in mine and shook it.
“I’m Zack.”
“Nice to meet you.” Mac said and then he returned to his computer.
“So, you have a thing for computers huh?” I asked, trying to make conversation, it was one of the few things that I had always been good at, except now, in the face of a situation that I actually had to use it, it was proving to be considerably harder.
“Not really, my dad’s the one who’s always been into them. He works for the apple company.” He replied looking up at me. “He’s actually the one who suggested the name for the Mac computer, and of course, my name.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I was just wondering since you seem to be pretty engrossed.”
“Oh, I’m just writing. I’ve been getting more and more into English, you know, starting to write short stories and such. I’ve actually just started to work on a full length novel, and I’ve been unable to stop writing it.”
“So I’m guessing that you must love school then,” I said.
“Oh yeah, definitely.” He said. “A lot of people make fun of me for it, but I try not to let it get to me. I don’t know if you’d understand though, you look like you’d be one of the popular kids, although most popular kids would be out with their friends at midnight on a Friday night, and not in an old café drinking coffee and reading.”
“Me? Popular? Are you kidding? I couldn’t be popular if I tried.” I said laughing humorlessly. “I’m actually ignored most of the time. Even by teachers. Sometimes I feel as though I don’t even exist.”
“Same here, even by my own family,” he said. “My dad is always at his job, working late nights and usually not getting home until around two or three. And my mom doesn’t live with us anymore, they got divorced a couple years ago. It’s why I come here, just to get the time passing.”
“So you must live around here then,” I said.
“Yeah, down the street actually. I go to Northfield HS.”
“Me too,” I said. “What grade?”
“Freshman, I just started. I actually moved here a couple months ago, so it’s all pretty new for me. What about you?”
“Same.” I said. “I’ve lived here since third grade.”
“Wonder why we never ran into each other.” Mac said.
I shook my head, “I don’t know, I guess I just don’t pay attention to the people at school, as most of them don’t feel like they need to stoop low enough to pay attention to me.”
“Yeah I know how you feel, its hard transferring. No one really makes a move to get to know you, and you just have to get by and just barely make friends or anything.”
“Have you moved around a lot?”
“Nah, this is the second time. The first time was only a couple years ago, so it wasn’t like it was much of a drastic change. I’ve never had many friends, so it’s not as it anyone’s going to miss me.”
“So why do you come here so late then? Can’t sleep or…” I trailed off waiting for him to talk.
“Usually I come here in the middle of the day, that’s probably one of the reasons that we never ran into each other.” Mac said. “I guess I came at this time tonight because I was sick of coming during lunch, while all the other kids went in the other direction and I knew that they were going somewhere cooler than I was. It’s so much easier coming in the middle of the night, when everyone’s sleeping.”
“Yeah I agree.” I said fingering the fray thread on the hem of my shirt.
“So why do you come here?” he asked me, closing his laptop and putting it on the table next to him and giving me his undivided attention. “I told you a bunch of stuff about me, it’s your turn.”
I sighed. “I’m an insomniac.”
“Oh,” he said looking surprised. “Since when?”
“Since I was twelve. My mom sort of went all… distant… I guess you could say. She stopped talking to me and my siblings. She started going out more, and when she would get home, she would head straight to her room without a word to any of us, and I guess it just seemed like we didn’t have a mother anymore, and we just had to deal by ourselves.”
“Wow. That’s a lot worse than I’ve got it. How many siblings do you have?”
“Four.” I replied, not really wanting to talk about my life anymore. I didn’t need to bore him with tales of woe about my family, when it was more than likely that he didn’t care anyway.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
We didn’t talk much after that. Occasionally, Mac would ask me a question and I would respond, but we never really got much of a conversation going. Sighing, and giving up any hope of conversation, Mac pulled out his laptop and once again resumed typing, as if we had never talked at all. I sighed and shook my head, getting up. It was clear that we were most likely never even going to speak to each other after this.
“Zack, wait,” Mac said just as I had grabbed my backpack and turned away.
“Yeah?” I said turning around.
“You have a cell, right?” he asked, pulling a phone out of his pants pocket.
“Uh, yeah, I do,” I said, getting my own phone out of my backpack. He took it out of my hands unexpectedly and started fiddling with it, and when he handed it back, I saw that he had put his number in, so I proceeded to do the same with his and after we had put our phones away, he held his hand out for another shake.
“So, I’ll see you here tomorrow then?” he asked, shaking my hand.
“Uh, yeah sure,” I replied. “See you.” And with that, I walked to the door, and out into the summer air. I was glad that there was no school at the moment, even though we would be starting up again in a couple weeks.
My thoughts strayed back to Leah and how she had looked at me. Almost like she was sorry for me for some reason. What she had to be sorry for me about, I had no idea, but you could bet I was about as curious as you can get. Leah was the kind of person who kept completely to herself unless she was ordering a drink at the café. Even Sally—one of the most persistent people I had ever met—had given up on making any eye contact—let alone a full conversation—out of her. I never heard her speak, never saw her do anything except sit and stare at nothing for hours. If I thought that I was shy, it was nothing compared to her.
I sighed as I walked down the sidewalk, kicking pebbles and stones as I went. It was going on one in the morning, and I had no idea of what I would do until the morning. Sleep was obviously out of the question, but I wasn’t in the mood for reading at the moment. My house was still several blocks away, so I at least had an activity for about twenty more minutes before I was confined in the bland walls of the place I was expected to call home. The day before had been chaotic, Sarah wouldn’t stop crying because Rico wouldn’t stop taking her toys away from her. Eventually I just got so sick of it all that I sent Rico to the room that he shared with Jack and kept Sarah happy for the rest of the night. Jack just kept to himself and played his DS in the corner of the living room. Jack always knew when things were too crazy, and he would try his best to stay out of my way so that things weren’t even harder for me. Rachel spent the night holed up in her and Sarah’s room, doing whatever it was that nine year old girls did these days.
I thought back to Mac and our conversation. He certainly seemed friendly enough, and he had wanted my phone number, but I still had a reason to be wary. No one, no matter how unnoticed they were by everyone else, usually wanted to be friends with me. It was also probably due to the fact that I kept to myself. I never talked to one, never interacted with anyone, and did my schoolwork in silence, not paying attention to anyone my age. Until that day that is. Mac certainly had the potential of being someone who I could finally be friends with, and I wasn’t about to pass up that opportunity. My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I was surprised to see that it was a text message from Jack. I opened it.
Where are you?
I shook my head before replying.
I was out. I’m coming home now. What are you doing up so late?
It was a couple more minutes of walking before I got a response.
I’m waiting for you. I saw you leave. We’re all worried about where you go at night, except for mom of course.
I quickly typed back a response.
It’s fine, don’t worry about me, I’ll be home soon. Go back to sleep.
I turned my phone off after that and put it away. I was surprised that my siblings had even noticed that I slipped out every night. I had always thought I did a good job of being discreet and quiet. But now that I thought about it, I realized that I had never really checked to make sure that they were all asleep before I left. Except for my mom, I always had to make sure she was asleep so I could avoid unnecessary confrontation. The first time I had tried to sneak out, she had yelled at me so loud that every kid in the house, except for Sarah, had raced downstairs to see what the problem was. I had doubted that any of them remembered the reason that she yelled at me, but they must have if they noticed that I left the house every night.
After about five more minutes of brooding and walking, I found myself walking up the worn driveway up to our house. After my dad had died, my mom stopped taking care of the house. Our worn out, wooden front door was close to hanging off the hinges, the foliage outside had grown up the side of the house, the driveway that was made of stones had gaps of dirt where the stones had come up. I sighed and shoved my key in the lock and forced the door open and had to work to keep it steady, before walking into the living room to find the television on and Jack sitting on the couch watching it. He looked up when I came in.
“I thought I told you to go back to sleep,” I scolded halfheartedly and sat next to him. Truthfully, I was glad to have the company of my brother.
He looked at me with laughter in his eyes, “Since when do I ever listen to you?”
I lightly shoved him and chuckled lightly.
“I just wanted to make sure that you made it back,” he said. “Usually you don’t come back until the morning. Where were you anyway?”
“Just at this café down the street,” I replied passively. “I go there and get a coffee usually, the waitress is nice and she keeps me company. Or I read.”
“Why do you leave?” he asked, looking at me with his brow furrowed. “You don’t ever sleep do you?”
I sighed. “It’s complicated.”
Jack sighed and nodded turning back to the TV. He always knew when I was going to talk and when I wasn’t.
“Why do you risk it anyway? After what Mom did that first time?”
I shrugged and considered that before I answered, “I don’t know. I can never sleep and I guess I just get too tired of being stuck inside. I just need to escape once and a while, so I can pretend that I don’t have a depressed mother.”
“I’m sorry about Mom you know. I’m sure she doesn’t mean it when she gets mad at you, and I’m sure she still loves us.” Jack said, still staring at the TV.
I put my arm around his thin shoulders, “Of course she still loves us, Jack.” I said. “She’s just trying to get by. She’s not really succeeding, but she’s trying.”
Jack nodded and put his head against my shoulder. “You’re the best brother I could’ve asked for.”
“Thanks, bud,” I replied.
We sat in silence after that, and I listened to his breathing as it because slower and deeper as he fell asleep. I spent the next hour or so surfing through channels on the TV until about two-thirty in the morning and I knew it was time to put Jack in his room. I turned off the TV and picked him up carefully so I wouldn’t wake him, and carried him up to his room. After I laid him down, I took in his appearance. He had dirty-blonde hair like mine, except his was slightly darker, his normally soft blue eyes were closed and his childlike features were peaceful in sleep. I felt a pang of jealousy at the fact that he could sleep and I couldn’t, but it quickly disappeared when I thought about how hard his life already was, and I couldn’t with sleep deprivation on him even if I wanted to. I sighed and brought the blankets up to his chin. I then turned off the light and after tossing another quick glance to his sleeping form, I walked out the door and towards my room. I was the only one in the household besides our mother that had their own room. It was probably because I was the oldest, but I could never see my mom’s motives, or anything about her anymore.
I dropped my backpack on the floor of my room and heard it land with a muffled thud on the carpet. I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair and closed my eyes in exasperation. My room was a mess leftover from the school year, papers were strewn across the floor along with clothes from when I had tiredly threw them out of the closet in the morning. My desk was in the corner by my closet, and my dresser was against the wall at the end of my bed. With yet another sigh—I seemed to be almost incapable of anything other than sighs lately—I laid down on my bed and just stared at the ceiling thinking. Sure, our life was a mess at the moment, but we were okay, and I just had to enjoy it while I could.
Eventually, I just let my mind drift, and I can’t recall thinking anything important for the rest of the night.
Alright! Please tell me what you think!!! And yes, I do realize that this chapter was ridiculously long! :D
