Diana woke with a jolt and scattered to retrieve her phone. After being blinded by the light she saw it was nearly four in the morning which meant she had slept solidly for over ten hours. She sat upright and started breathing heavy in panic.

“Jimmy?” when she called out it was barely above a whisper. Her mouth was dry and she was justifiably scared.

“Matt?” Diana stood up this time and slowly made her way to the door. She could see that under the door the hallway light was on and when she opened the door the light was more blinding than her cell phone light.

“Brian? Hello is anyone up?” now noticing there was a folded paper taped to the door she tore it off and opened it.

Checked on you and you mumbled you were fine when we all left around 11. Call me when you wake up or in the morning. –Jimmy

Holding the note in her hand she made her way back to her bed to grab her cell phone. She dialed Jimmy’s number but it rang all the way to voicemail. Starting to tear up, she called the next number in her recent list and on the third ring was picked up and a mumbled hello was heard in the receiver.

“Hey um Zacky are you busy?”

“I was sleeping if that counts as busy. What’s up?”

“Can you come over? I don’t want to be alone right now.”

A shifting and sheets moving could be heard.

“Yeah give me about ten minutes.”

“Thanks Zacky.”

Diana couldn’t remember the last time ten minutes felt like ten hours. When she heard the front door unlocking she bounded up out of the bed and swiftly downstairs to see Zacky already making his way up the stairs. When she was close enough to him, he pulled her close and hugged her.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

She buried her face into his chest and started heavily breathing again.

“I don’t know I just feel so weird. I took that medication the doctor gave me and I slept for ten hours and when I woke up…I don’t know.”

He took her face into his hands and looked her in the eyes.

“Calm down its going to be alright. It probably just triggered one of your anxiety attacks. Come on lets go upstairs.”

She reluctantly let him go and held the railing up the stairs and went back to her room. She sat back down onto the bed and decided to curl back up under the sheets while Zacky sat beside her on the bed.

“I’m going to stay right here until you fall back asleep.”

“I don’t want to go back to sleep.”

“Okay then what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.”

Zacky tiredly laughed and rubbed his face. Diana scooted towards the middle of her bed and pulled him into the spot she was just lying in.

“I’m going to fall asleep if I lay down.”

“That’s fine. I just don’t want to be alone. Just promise not to leave me.”

“Okay I won’t.”

She smiled at him and he smiled back reassuringly. She reached over to her night stand and turned on her reading light and grabbed her current book. She sat up and leaned against the headboard while Zacky put his arm over his eyes to block the light.

“What are you reading this time?”

“L’Étranger.”

“Another Albert Camus novel?”

“Of course! You know how much I love his work and his beliefs in existentialism and the theory of the absurd.”

“Have fun with that.”

“I will. Now get to sleep.”

She playfully hit his arm with the book and they shared another laugh. Diana sat back and read her book for another few hours until the sun finally rose.

Notes