The Quiet of Night is Unnerving

History is repeating itself. I just sent a text message to a good, close friend of mine and it’s similar to something the younger me sent my ex-boyfriend in the past, forever ago, 6 weeks before I graduated college. The quiet of night is unnerving.

I’m sitting in the dark, reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower and listening to a playlist someone made on YouTube of Charlie’s—the main protagonist—mixtape. It makes the fictional world more real, makes the pages come alive. Why is silence so loud?

I just want to sleep. Maybe calm quiet will come to me tonight. I hope so. My mother called me earlier today and told me that she randomly thought of my ex and asked if I had heard from him (I hadn’t) or why I didn’t reach out to him (I don’t want to). She knows that something bad happened but not what, and asked those sneaky, roundabout questions that moms ask when they are trying to get info from you. I didn’t budge. She said she wanted me to be okay if something should happen to her, and wanted me to be with someone “who loves you unconditionally.” She was as sincere in her heartfelt desire as I was sincere in my doubt. Cynicism is addictive.

My hand is numb. I can feel the odd, prickly sensation of pins and needles in my fingers. The limb feels heavy, like I’ve been holding a stack of books in this one hand for far too long. It is the first thing I’ve felt in a while. How ironic considering the week-long dissociation spell. Maybe sleep’s not too far off now…