A short story about insomnia by David Tombale: Demons

Demons

There are those rare moments at night, when you lie awake and somehow your whole life unfolds in front of you and there’s simply nowhere to hide. Scott had turned over on his side, then on his back until he realized that there’d be no sleep for him. It wasn’t the rain slapping against the windows or the cool air that blew in through an open shutter, it turned out to be the demons that had been plaguing him for a little over a month.

He rolled out of bed and using the flashlight on his phone he found the album he’d hidden among the books on his shelf. It was small and had a red cover and when he pulled it open a photo immediately fell to the floor. He got to his knees and picked it up and wasn’t surprised to find that it was a picture of the two of them on that same bed. In it he was bent over and wearing an old Metallica shirt and she had her arms around his neck with her auburn hair falling over his shoulder.

Scott sat at his desk and smiled down at the picture. He put it beside the album as he opened it in front of him. He flipped through the pages not really focusing on any of them but just scanning through the memories they’d made. In almost every picture he’d find her smiling back at him, usually in a pair of jeans that showed off her athletic body. There she was in a baseball cap, with long hair, with short hair, at the beach wearing a long skirt and kicking sand at the lens, or leaning back against a wooden horse on a carousel.

Scott put down the album and stared out the window at the sun shyly peeking over the horizon. He hadn’t realized how long he’d been sitting there, but the aches in his body hinted that it had been far longer than he would have liked to admit. The covers moved and a head poked out from under them. Her black hair was frizzy and looked like static had got to it and she quickly noticed him at his table. She met his eyes blearily, confusion all over her face.

‘Scott? How long have you been up?’ she asked.

‘Not long,’ he replied closing the album and placing his French Dictionary on top of it. He got up and eased into bed beside her.

She put her arm over him and smiled. ‘Good morning.’

‘Morning,’ he smiled back at her.

She moved closer and laid her head on his lap. Scott glanced down at the top of her head then up at the ceiling and hated himself for the pain he must be causing her. He hated that another woman still owned his heart and if she asked he’d have to tell her that April was all he could think about.