taylorhpart3

Taylor

If you are awake at 4:30 in the morning you have a reason. Whether it be that you're an insomniac or that you're fucking someone, there is something that explains why you're up. No one is awake at four thirty. At four thirty, if you're not sleeping, and even if you have a reason, you must be the only person alive on the planet because no one is out, no one is talking, no one is breathing. It is my worst fear that I am the only one alive and that I am totally alone.

I woke up at 2:30am on the road between Baltimore and Raleigh. I checked my watch then and two hours later. It scared me that two hours later I was still awake because it meant that in an hour I would have to be up and running and ready for an early morning radio show interview somewhere in North Carolina. It also scared me that it was so quiet on the bus. The world was sleeping and I was wide awake.

In the two hours that I lay awake staring at the top of my bunk, I thought of Callie. I always think of Callie when I have nothing else to think about, and even when I do have other things I should be thinking about, I think of her. In the early morning, beneath the heavy rumble of the bus speeding over miles and miles of interstate highway, I listened for her breathing. She was sleeping soundly underneath me and I ached to hear her breathe; the sound of her was a song and in itself would put me to sleep I was sure. But the bus was too loud and even when I held my own breath I couldn't hear hers.

Out of desperation towards my insomnia and the world, I pushed my curtain aside and leaned over the edge. I pushed her curtain aside and called her name. She didn't stir so I pulled her hair; it hung over the edge of her bed. At this, she awoke and held my hand against her head, slapping it down as if it was an insect.

"What?" she asked quietly. She seemed annoyed but I was so relieved that someone else was alive I didn't bother to apologize for waking her up.

"I can't sleep," I said and she rolled over, peeking her head over the edge so that we could see each other's faces.

"Why not?"

" I don't know. I just can't."

She took my hand then in hers and ran her fingertips up and down the inside of my arm. Her fingers tickled but her skin was soft as usual and my eyes began to feel heavy.

"If you could be anywhere in the world where would you be right now?" she asked. "Pretend that you're there."

I pretended I was in Tulsa. In my old house and my old bed. I pretended it was hot and all my windows were open and there was fan at the foot of my bed blowing a breeze in the scent of my mom's clothes at my face.

"Where ever you are, stay there and think as if you are there. Think as if everything that goes through your mind, every thought, is with you. Relax like you are there."

In Tulsa I think I fell asleep. I don't know when I fell asleep or when Callie stopped gliding her fingers over my arm but with that and her breathing that I finally heard, I drifted away as if they were music.