The Insomniacs

by Marit Weisenberg

  That was how old he’d been when his dad had died. It was also the same year his mother remarried Kevin and they’d bought the house across the street.

  “What about you?” Van asked. “I’ve seen your light on a lot lately.”

  “How long did your insomnia last? When you were five, I mean?”

  Van’s face registered disappointment that I hadn’t answered his question, like he’d offered something and I’d rejected it.

  “A while,” he said. I didn’t like the sound of that, like I might now be on an endless loop.

  Nervous, I gathered my hair in one fist and smoothed it over one shoulder. Why wasn’t I telling him? There was no good reason. Here he was sharing his problem with me. Maybe I could share mine. “Yeah, I’m having trouble sleeping.”

  “When did it start?” He leaned back on his hands.

  “Since last week. The accident. It’s just strange. I’m so tired but I can’t sleep.”

  “And then you get kind of manic and it gets harder and harder?”

  “Exactly.” I nodded.

  “What are you worried about?” he asked.

  Ha. That was funny. Screaming women fleeing the house next door, my diving career, money, him. I shrugged one shoulder. “As soon as school gets out, I have Regionals and then zones and then Junior National Championships. Now is the worst possible time to be out for a month. I’ve got to sleep. The doctors say it’s the best way to heal.”

  Van looked like he was thinking hard about something. Finally, he said, “Misery loves company. Since neither of us can sleep and your mom’s gone, do you want to hang out at night? Maybe we can ride out our insomnia together.”

  What?

  Van shifted on my bed and broke eye contact. “I’ve learned a lot about the subject lately.” His eyes cut back to mine. “I also have Ambien.”

  “You wouldn’t get in trouble?”

  “I know how to sneak out.” Van consulted his phone. “I gotta go.” He stood to leave. “Just let me know.”

  It was exactly what I shouldn’t do. But something inside me seemed to loosen, like a door opened. And I stepped right through.

  “That sounds great.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6

  “Are you getting a hotel room for prom?” Collette asked Izzie.

  “You mean as a group?” Izzie looked unsure.

  I traced one finger through the yellow pollen on the side of Izzie’s burgundy-colored Honda Civic, half listening to my friends talk about prom in the parking lot after school. Izzie was there, as well as Preeti, Colette, and Molly. I streaked my finger along the car and a scratch in the paint slit my finger. I brought it to my mouth and tasted metallic blood while I watched Wilson and Max round the opening of the wilting chain-link fence like movie stars presented in slow motion, the low-ceilinged buildings of the school in the frame behind them.

  “Oh my god, speaking of hotel rooms, did you hear that Anna B’s mom got caught having an affair? She was in the Hilton parking lot on her lunch break with someone from her law firm,” Collette was saying.

  “That is such a rumor,” Molly said.

  “My mom told me. She said there’s no place to go for privacy. Everyone gets caught. Eventually. I think she was trying to scare me.”

  While I pretended to listen to the conversation around me, I surreptitiously followed the boys with my eyes. Max wore a crisp black T-shirt and black Ray-Bans. His red hair was getting long and beginning to curl at his collar. Wilson’s outfit was more preppy: an untucked button down and jeans. He was cultivating a rich kid-vibe: very skinny, stoned eyes at half-mast all of the time, slouching like he was a puppy with limbs too long for his body. I spied loafers on his feet—the buttery soft, beaten-up kind. His glossy black hair had also grown long with his curls stretching out.

  The boys had become self-aware this year. They knew how cool they were. I’d seen them go through a metamorphosis over the past several months and it was easy to guess the influence: Seba.

  Seba was stationed by his BMW, holding court, everything staged around him, drawing the beautiful people and closing the circle to everyone else. Sebastian, aka Seba (“Sayba”) was skinny with short curly hair, quoted ’90s films and didn’t talk to anyone he deemed not worth his time. He’d shown up at the beginning of the school year because, word had it, his private school had caught him cheating. There were whispers about rehab.

  I knew him from elementary and middle school and he’d been exactly the same except now he owned his short stature. I’d disliked him ever since second grade when he’d said he hated Jewish people.

  Seba snickered, probably at someone else’s expense. The others laughed and Wilson, apparently the butt of the joke, pushed Seba’s shoulder. This school year, it was like the boys had absorbed some of Seba—Wilson’s loafers, sunglasses worn in the classroom, an attitude with a layer of cutting watchfulness. There were rumors of cocaine parties at Seba’s parents’ lake house. I wondered how much Van was involved in all of that.

  Izzie leaned into me and whispered, “You’re staring.”

  I gave my head a little shake. “I was spacing out, I guess.” I’d forgotten my sunglasses, which I wished I could hide behind now. I was so rarely in the parking lot after school where everyone checked out everyone else. Usually I was long gone. I would have been having private sessions with Coach Mike by the time the final bell rang.

  “They think they are so cool. They are so cool, I guess,” Izzie said wistfully. I watched Iz watch Max for a moment. She’d had a thing for him since sophomore year when they’d flirted nonstop in Chemistry. He’d even come to watch her play the Baker’s Wife.

  “Here comes Caroline and company,” Izzie said.

  I couldn’t resist and aimed my gaze at a group on the opposite side of the parking lot—the seniors. Caroline was walking toward the senior corner with two other girls, one with long shiny hair named Skyler, and another who wore very short cutoffs. How had Caroline moved to Austin only a couple of years ago and integrated so effortlessly? The girls in her grade had made room for her. The alpha males instantly wanted to date her. As Izzie had once said, Caroline had that popular gene. What I couldn’t get over was how, even though she wasn’t nearly as competitive as the top divers on our team, she still excelled at diving, a pretty cutthroat sport. And she’d only taken it up since quitting gymnastics. While I knew it was useless to compare myself, in my mind, she had it all.

  She had diving and a boyfriend. The boyfriend.

  The car singed my thighs where skin touched paint but I let it burn. It made me feel present. Since the accident, I trudged through a fog with a dull headache that felt like being under a foot of warm, gray water.

  Seba left his post and jogged to catch up to Caroline and her friends. He tapped Caroline on the shoulder, and when she whipped around to see who it was, he came close, into her personal space. Seba didn’t even glance at the other girls. I saw him cock his head, grin, and then say something to Caroline. The other two girls laughed in disbelief at the boldness of whatever he’d just said. Seba then reached out to gently adjust the charm on Caroline’s necklace so it fell once again just above her cleavage. Caroline caught his hand and seemed to hold it for an instant, looking into his eyes. Then Caroline took a step back but laughed and rolled her eyes, expertly handling him like she was used to aggressive male attention and didn’t want to cause a scene. Seba grinned and put his hands on his hips, watching as the girls walked away from him. He was the asshole—the very charming asshole—who flirted with someone else’s girlfriend for everyone to see. I knew Seba and Caroline were friends but that Seba made no secret he was into her. I’d seen Seba socializing with Caroline even before he was hanging out with Van and the boys. Maybe Seba had made the introduction. He couldn’t be happy Caroline and Van were together.

  “Did you see Max and Wilson’s tattoos?” Preeti asked in her high, singsong voice, as if she’d ever spoken a word to either of them.
r />   “What did they get?” Izzie asked. She didn’t look up from her phone.

  “The same one, both of them. Kind of small, tribal sort of? Wilson’s looks infected. Ew. Van probably has it on his upper arm now, too,” Preeti said.

  I didn’t comment. I was brought back immediately to the touch of Van’s bare arm against mine. That was one thing about my new waking state—my mind could wholly disappear from one moment into another.

  I lifted my sleeveless T-shirt away from my body, trying to unstick it. The sun was unrelenting. That moment, just after Preeti said Van’s name, he appeared like magic. His long gait, head down, maybe to avoid the blinding reflection off the white concrete. He had a quiet confidence and wore his popularity naturally. It was just who he was. He had also been born with that gene.

  “Tagawa!” Seba called.

  Van waved in greeting but, to my surprise, he strode past his friends toward Caroline’s group, wordlessly hopping up on the open bed of a silver truck. Caroline immediately leaned against his legs and he wrapped his arms loosely around her shoulders. She tipped her head backward and he kissed her forehead. Nausea crept up my sternum.

  In the background, cheers erupted from the baseball field.

  If I wasn’t crazy and hadn’t made last night up, I’d see Van tonight. He’d left without a word about where we were going to meet and what time. When we’d sat across the room from each other just twenty minutes ago in class, we’d had zero communication.

  “He’s so into her,” Colette said. “He was all about hookups but no girlfriend, and now look at him.”

  It was true. I’d never seen Van so attentive. I’d also never seen him dismiss his friends.

  “Ingrid.”

  “What?”

  “That look on your face,” Colette said, sizing me up.

  I was having problems bringing Colette into focus. She seemed too close to me and her dainty features hadn’t sharpened into view.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. From her auburn ringlets to her short stature, everything about Collette fit the word “cute.” She was cast as the lead in every school play.

  With dawning knowledge, a slow smirk spread over Colette’s face. “Like total longing. I have never seen you look at a boy that way.”

  “No, I’m just out of it.”

  In our group, Colette and I were the least close. She and Izzie had gone to school together since kindergarten, and she was possessive of Izzie. Colette was also smart in a way I hated—she had x-ray vision when it came to seeing people’s weaknesses. I’d had enough of her laughing when Izzie’s Israeli mom would say something not quite right in English.

  There was zero way Colette could know I had any feelings for Van. Colette was the reason I’d never even hinted to Izzie that I had a crush on him. Izzie once told me Colette was intimidated by me because I was pretty and I didn’t give a fuck. Izzie’s words. I doubted it—on both counts—but I wanted to kiss Izzie for saying it. I liked the idea of hiding the real me. There was a lot of respect to be had when you came off as being invulnerable.

  “Hey, by the way—any more break-ins next door? It’s so weird because it’s a good neighborhood. I thought it was…” Colette remarked.

  “The last one was a few weeks ago,” I said.

  “How many have there been now?” Izzie asked.

  “The police have been called three times? No, four? Three, I think.” I just wanted to go.

  “What if someone is using the space for something? Not just stealing stuff. Like they’ve set up shop?” Colette said.

  I watched Caroline hold her rose-gold phone up to her ear and wander away from the group to talk. Without consulting the time, I knew she was late for practice. Van watched her closely.

  All at once, like a herd of elk, Caroline’s group across the parking lot seemed to sense they were being watched and turned their heads in our direction. I jolted away from the car and quickly gave them my back—anything to look like I wasn’t a voyeur.

  “Izzie, you still good with giving me a ride?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THURSDAY, APRIL 7

  Still up?

  The text was from a 512 area code and when I saw the unknown contact light up the screen, it felt like a piece of precious information falling into my lap. Now we were connected.

  Still up.

  Was that too curt? I hit send before I could overthink it.

  The bubbles appeared onscreen and tantalizingly wavered. I pushed higher up in bed, my heart in my throat.

  Should I come through the back door?

  Front door. Back gate is loud.

  The typing bubbles appeared again for a full minute. He was typing a lengthy response. Then they went away. And nothing. No message.

  I’d kept my overhead light on all night so there was no mistaking I was awake if he was paying attention. I’d been stressing since around 10 P.M. about how we would get in touch or if we would even meet again at night. Maybe it had been a suggestion he’d made on a whim and forgotten all about it.

  I liked Van even more now that he’d followed through with our tentative plans. But one second later, I had a new terror—what would we talk about? Also, Van was used to girls adoring him. Would he assume I was also trying to hook up with him? God.

  I couldn’t stand the tension of waiting for his next text. I reread Coach Mike’s text from earlier, hoping that this time I’d feel a thrill from his compliment: It’s so hard to explain perfect form and execution. It’s much easier to just have the kids watch you.

  Instead the text still made me anxious.

  I wasn’t supposed to take Ambien but maybe if I could sleep tonight, tomorrow, I could pull my attention back to training.

  I went into my bathroom, still humid from my shower. I put my palms on the gray-and-white marbled vanity and leaned my weight into them, lifting my heels up while I checked myself out in the mirror. Hair brushed, makeup that didn’t look like I was wearing makeup—some beige concealer to hide the dark circles and a little mascara. The kind of makeup your friends would immediately know you were wearing but no guy ever would.

  When I saw my reflection in the mirror, it was jarring and then reassuring that I was still here, still whole. So much of me felt like it was floating away these days. Losing focus. Seeing myself helped me put everything back into order, into a container.

  I’d given it a minute. I went back to my bedroom and picked up the facedown phone from the pillow to check for a message, trying to expect nothing.

  Sounds good. Be there soon.

  Inadvertently, I smiled.

  I wondered how he got my number.

  For one tiny second, I reshuffled my mental deck of cards and pretended I lived a life where this was normal and expected—a boy I liked so much coming over just to see me.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THURSDAY, APRIL 7

  Van slid past me into the foyer.

  Lights blazed in the downstairs of my house and we looked at each other in the brightness.

  “So, you brought the Ambien?” I asked, realizing a split second later how abrupt that sounded.

  Van peeked over my shoulder and joked, “You’re not a cop, are you?”

  I smiled. “I recently retired.”

  Van laughed. “Can we get out of the aquarium?” he asked, gesturing to the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  “Sure,” I said. He started toward the staircase. Apparently, Van was coming back up to my bedroom.

  When I led Van into my room, he walked directly over to the window—the window—and looked down on the abandoned house, silent for a moment.

  “Do you mind turning off the light for a second so I can see out?” Van asked.

  I snapped it off, shrouding us in darkness.

  “Do you see anything?” I asked after a long moment.

  “It’s quiet,” Van finally said. He glanced at me over his shoulder and then, like he remembered I was there, he turned to face me and leaned his back against the wall,
legs locked out in front of him. “It’s weird how you can always tell whether someone’s home or not. Like when people leave on vacation. Even if they leave all these lights on, it’s so obvious no one is home. It’s like you know if a house is breathing or not.” Van didn’t wait for my agreement. “If someone comes back, we’ll be able to tell. Even if we can’t see them.”

  Tonight? Another night? The way he said it made it sound like a commitment—like we’d be doing this again.

  I turned on my desk lamp and then watched as Van dug in his pocket and produced a pill. “You’re much lighter than me, so I would take half.” He brought it over to my desk, sat down, and sliced through one pill. Both of us hovered over the desk like we were performing surgery. Van handed me the half. With a What the hell? shrug, he popped the other half in his mouth, then glanced warily at the window that faced his own home.

  I definitely wasn’t supposed to take it, but I was so desperate. Just this one time. My next neurology appointment was coming up and it was so important that I present a good face. I needed this rest period shortened, not extended.

  Grabbing the water bottle next to my bed, I washed the pill down. “Want some?” I asked, holding out my used water bottle. I should have run downstairs to get him water instead of acting so familiar. He wasn’t going to want my germs.

  He held out his arm and we both stretched long to pass it. “Thanks.” Van took a long swig and then held on to it, fidgeting with the screw top.

  I sat down primly on the end of my bed. He stayed in the swivel desk chair but swung it to face me fully. He wasn’t exactly making himself at home; his body language was tense, ready to leave any second.

  “So, you know, my doctor said you should turn off all your lights at least thirty minutes before trying to fall asleep,” Van said.

  Van switched off the lamp. We were thrust into darkness. My eyes adjusted and I could see the outlines of Van, illuminated by my screen saver, a multicolored, dissolving triangle that wiped hypnotically across the screen.

  “Sorry, is this weird?” Van asked, laughing.