Sleep Timer: A Short Story

They lay in bed together. The room is dark except for the light from the television. The movie had just finished; the credits were rolling.

He knows he should get up, either to put a different movie in, or at least get the remote so they could watch TV. But he doesn’t want to let her go. She isn’t sleeping- he can tell by her breathing- so getting up wouldn't disturb her.

He had memorized how she breathed when she was sleeping. They spent the night together often, but they had never slept together. He was okay with that. He knew she wasn’t ready for that sort of step, even if she wanted to. That’s what he didn’t know; if she wanted to. That’s what he would think about at night while she slept in his arms and he watched her sleep and listened to her breathing.

That’s what he did most night when they were together. He’d watch her sleep and think and wonder how they got there and where he was going. He wasn’t sure what was going on between the two of them. He was, however, pretty sure that she didn’t know either. Sadly, he thought she preferred it that way.

She turns her head and twists her body a little to face him, the green comforter that’s covering them twists as it gets tangled in her clothes. He turns to face her, sitting up on his elbow. His clothes turn and twist under the blanket, becoming uncomfortable. He adjusts to make them comfortable again, and spreads the blanket smoothly over them.

She looks up at him and smiles. He loves it when she does that. It makes him feel good inside; warm. It makes him happy that she is happy. “That was a pretty good movie,” she says softly, stifling a small yawn, “I liked it.”

He smiles back, “I told you.” She reminds him of Penny Lane. There’s a dull ache that comes with the happiness, though. It comes from knowing that he wants more and makes it known. But it’s not reciprocated, not completely. He loves to see her happy and he does a lot of things in order to make her smile. He gets her little gifts sometimes, but never anything expensive; he knows it would make her uncomfortable. He calls her whenever he sees it snowing because he knows that she loves the snow, and he is always reminded of her when he watches the frozen flakes fall outside his window.

He even built her a snowman once. It wasn’t a very good one, nor was it very easy to build. The snow was light and fluffy. It took him forever to build each of the individual pieces. He had to do it without gloves, using body heat to melt the snow and make it stick. Each of the body balls was built in layers. The snowman wasn’t very big, a foot and a half tall at most, with Pepsi bottle caps for eyes and an old pen cap for a nose. He built it right outside her window. He felt like such a dork doing it since they weren’t together yet. He couldn’t help himself though, despite being worried about weirding her out rather than make her smile. He called it a Lloyd Dobbler moment.

She likes him too. She enjoys his company; she likes spending time with him. She knows he's a nice guy and would do almost anything for her. This makes her feel bad, because although she likes him too, she wouldn’t. She's told him this, too. She likes him enough to make sure he knows that while he 's rocketing at 100 miles an hour, she's idling at the starting line.

She wasn’t even sure why she was even at the race. It certainly wasn’t a friends-with-benefits thing. She wouldn’t do that. Neither would he; not with her. She wasn’t ready. She didn’t need to be with him, or any other guy for that matter, just to feel better about herself. It couldn’t possibly be her ex-boyfriend, could it? She refused to give him that much credit, though maybe he deserved it.

She’s a good person. She sees the good in other people. She sees the bad, too, but chooses to give them the benefit of the doubt. She’s fiercely loyal to those close to her, maybe to a fault. She’d been mostly lucky, that trust never seriously hurt her. Not until recently. She’d had to deal with things on her own, things she wasn’t used to dealing with. It was a hard and painful lesson. Now that she’d learned it, she was afraid of leaning on someone else the way others leaned on her. She didn’t want to learn those lessons again.

She knows he’s the same way. He’s very trusting. He also always assumes that everyone else is a nice as he is. Like her, he gives everyone the benefit of the doubt. Also like her, his openness has been taken advantage of. He’s unaffected by it, or at least he doesn’t show it. Maybe that’s why she’s with him. She thinks he hasn’t let the badness of the world wear him down.

The truth of the matter is he won’t let it. He used to be cynical and pessimistic, until he fell in love with a girl. Life became easier when he looked for the good. The girl broke is heart, and he was angry and bitter and cold for a while. But he realized staying that way took too much energy. He let it go. She hopes that someday, she can let it go too.

She can’t understand why he wants so badly to be with her. For him, if anything’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. It’s all or nothing; play hard or go home. She can appreciate that. She’s the same way. That’s what confuses her the most. He’s in it all the way, and she’s not. She can’t figure out why she’s different; why she’s special. She doesn’t know that to him, she just is.

She smiles at him again, arching her back a little bit, stretching. “It’s getting kind of late, but I’m not that tired yet.”

He looks over at the digital clock. The red LED says that it’s pushing . “We can watch another movie. I’ve got lots that you haven’t seen.” He hopes she’ll stay.

“She cranes her head back, looking at the clock herself, “It’s almost 10. I’ll probably fall asleep.”

“So? You know I like it when you stay over.”

She doesn’t respond. He knows he probably made her uncomfortable. Still, she doesn’t move to get up. He throws the comforter off. He wants to give her a quick kiss as he steps over her and off the bed, but decides against it, not wanting to make things worse for her.

He adjusts his khakis again. They got bundled up and uncomfortable while he was moving and getting up. He has two different DVD stands in his room. He walks over to the one behind his bed. Most of it is filled with TV seasons, “I still can’t believe you never heard of Firefly. Someday we’re going to block off an entire weekend and we’re watching it straight through.”

“You are such a dork.”

“Yes. Yes I am.”

There weren’t any movies worth watching on that rack, so he turned back to the DVD’s underneath his TV, “What about Brick? Or Garden State? Gross Pointe Blank?

“You pick. You’ve seen them. You know what’s good.”

“I don’t buy crappy movies.”

“Yeah? Is that The Girl Next Door?”

“Fair enough.”

He puts in and crawls back into the bed. He pulls the blanket back over them. He wraps his arms around her and pulls her close, his chest against her back. He doesn’t know how much she likes it, but she doesn’t move away. She’d tell him if she didn’t, or more likely, just push him away.

He enjoys doing this, just holding her close. He kisses the back of her head, inhaling the sweet smell of her hair. She squeezes his arms tighter. He moves to her neck, taking in a full breath of her perfume. She pushes her head into his, moving him away from her neck, “It’s not happening.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come off like that.”

She smiles again, and his pulse quickens. She reaches up and strokes his cheek, then pulls his head to hers, kissing him. She enjoys it, but it’s a lot more passionate for him than it is for her. He runs his fingers through her hair and cups the side of her head in his hand, pulling her body close to him with the other. It won’t go past first base, but he doesn’t care. He thinks she’s beautiful, but it’s not a physical thing for him, not unless she wants it to be.

He feels something stirring inside. His heart starts beating even faster, and his legs get a little weak. He pulls away and looks into her blue eyes. He pushes her hair to the side. He caresses her angelic face. He shouldn’t do this. It isn’t fair to her. He knows what the situation is. She made it perfectly clear to him.

He doesn’t have much time left to bring her around. She’s graduating. He’s not. He doesn’t know where she’s going or what she’s going to do- she doesn’t either, really- but they both know it won’t be around here. She’s graduating only six months before he is, but he knows that they’ll never see each other again unless he can create something more permanent. He's not wild about something long distance, even over the short term, but he wants something. He knows he can’t create it by himself without help from her, but damn it if he isn’t going to try to convince her.

He feels awful about what he’s about to do. It’s not fair to her, knowing that she likes him, and knowing that she feels bad about not being able to give herself up to it like he has. It’s a selfish move on his part. He tells himself it has to be done, and it does. He wouldn’t be able to face himself in the mirror if he didn’t do this when he had the chance. He has to know that he tried everything.

“Are you okay?” she asks, a little concerned at the look of sorrowful determination on his face.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He pauses for a moment. “I’m going to say something to you right now, and you’re probably not going to like it.” Her brow furrows, she’s wondering what he’s going to say.

“I love you.”

Her face goes smooth, her eyes widening a little in shock. Even though the room is dark, the television gives off enough light for him to see that the color has drained from her face.

“I love you,” he repeats.

“What- I- you- hold on. You can’t possibly love me. You hardly know me.”

“I don’t need to know anymore. What I do know is that right here, right now, I love you. I’d step in front of a car for you.

“I… you must be confused.”

“I don’t think I am.”

“I don’t think you know what love is.” He blanches at the sting of the words; she regrets them as soon as she says them.

“I think I’m happier when you’re around. I think I’m a better person. You know how some people say that when you love somebody, all you want to do is nothing but be around them? Not me. You deserve someone who’s smart and knowledgeable and articulate and kind and giving and funny and-and-and just a good person. You deserve that person because you are that person. And I want to do everything I can to try and become him too. I’m a better person because of you. My life is better because you’re in it. It may not be the life long love you think it should be, because that kind of love requires two people, and try as I might, I can't love enough for the both of us. But don’t try to tell me I don't love you.”

“I-“ she stops and sighs, rubbing her eyes wearily. “I’m sorry.”

She rolls away from him so she can face the TV, but still lets him hold her, “Make sure you set the sleep timer.”