Lucky People

I lift my hand to the paper-thin wall and knock. Knock, knock, pause, quickly three more. I roll over onto my left side, staring at the wall in front of my face. Maybe she’s asleep already. Then I hear the same beat return to me, 1-2-pause-quick 3. I can’t help but smile, a warm feeling filling my chest, and I sigh. There’s a comforting feeling about her being awake, too. I reach over for my phone, thankful for the long charger. I type in my password and pull up her contact.

Ki: why’re you still up?

Dots bounce at the bottom of the screen for a moment.

Blondie<3: I could ask you the same thing

I sigh and look up at the ceiling, making shapes out of the patterns like constellations.

Ki: I asked first

I can almost hear her sigh.

Blondie<3: Just couldn’t sleep.

I frown at the screen. She’s been having a lot of nights where she “just couldn’t sleep” lately. I see the dots meaning she’s typing again, but I click off the phone and set it back onto my side table. I throw on a hoodie since it would be weird if I showed up to her room shirtless. Making sure to be as quiet as I can, I get up from my bed and carefully open the door. I let out a breath of relief when it doesn’t creak.

Making my way down the hall, I'm careful to be as quiet as I can. When I make it to the kitchen, I take one glance down where I came to make sure she didn't hear me before flipping the light on, glad the kitchen is so far from our rooms so she won't see the light on.

I go through all of the usual steps, trying my best not to make any noise. I finally have a cup ready and I tap the light switch off before quietly making my way down the hall and just past my door.

Tap, tap- pause- quick 3 taps.

I hear shuffling on the other side and the door peaks open a moment later.

"Ki? What're you doing?" She says Ki, the nickname she made for me, as key. She reaches up to brush a stray piece of hair from her face that fell out of her loosely tied braid.

I hold the mug out towards her, "Made you tea." She takes it gladly, just the tips of her fingers poking out from the oversized sweater she loves to wear.

"Thanks, Ki."

"Wanna talk? Til you fall asleep." She eyes me, skeptically. I raise my hands in surrender, "I won't try anything, don't worry. And it's gotta be better than staring at the ceiling, bored, right?"

She rolls her eyes playfully. "Fine, you can come in. But you're sitting on the floor."

"As you wish, Blondie." I bow, dramatically.

She glares at me, but I can see a playful glint in her bright gray eyes. "You know my name isn't actually Blondie, right?"

"Why of course, Sunshine. But your reactions to nicknames are cute," I grin. She rolls her eyes again and sits on her bed. She sits cross-legged, holding her cup in her lap, and she gestures for me to take a seat on the floor. I chuckle and do so, leaning against the wall. I drape my arm over my bent knee and lean my head back against the wall, the corner of the window next to my head.

"How was your day?" I ask, glancing at her.

She sucks in a breath and I chuckle, waiting to see what happened. "It was good overall, I guess. But that new fucking art teacher- ugh."

"Oh, yeah he was really creepy," I agree. She sighs and starts ranting about something that happened in that class. I nod along, watching her as she makes exaggerated hand gestures to prove her point. My lips curve up into a small smile as she describes her day.

I don't know how long it's been, maybe just a couple of hours now. I could spend hours listening to her talk about anything, though.

Paris takes one last gulp of her chamomile and lavender tea before setting the empty mug on her bedside table. She yawns and lays down, still on top of the blanket, her eyes still focused on me. She has her arm bent under her head like a pillow and her knees to her chest.

"Lia said there's a new guy who's coming to school soon. I hope he's nice." She yawns again.

I feel a small spike of jealousy, but smirk playfully. "I'm the only man you need, Lovely."

She laughs and rolls her eyes. "Why do you always act like we're dating?"

"We should," I respond with a cheeky grin. "Date, I mean. Be in a relationship. Whatever you want to call it."

She rolls her eyes again, obviously thinking I'm joking. I'm not, of course, but I don't tell her that. A car passes by outside, the sound filling the room and the headlights filtering through the blinds, painting stripes on the wall across me. Light dances on her face as the car moves by, settling back into the small dots of shadows from the fairy lights stringed across her ceiling.

She tries to keep her eyes open, which only makes her more tired. "How was,"- yawn -"your day?" I smile at her sleepy figure. She's obviously tired now, I don't know why she's still trying to stay up.

I lean my head back and look at her ceiling. "My day was good. I fell asleep in a few of my classes, skipped a couple, didn't pay attention in the rest. Not much different than usual." I glance over at her to see if she's asleep yet. Her bright gray eyes shine back at me. "I finished another drawing in my sketchbook," I say.

"Will you ever let me see any of that?" She asks. She's been wanting to see my sketchbook since we met. I always feel too embarrassed. It may just be drawings, but it shows my thoughts and exposes me just the same as a diary. It is my diary, in a sense. Just with pictures to convey my thoughts instead of words. I was never much of a writer. It feels like it's my soul on the pages, and I don't know if I'd be ready to show her my heart and soul like that, it's a terrifying thought. I don't know if I can be that vulnerable around her.

"Maybe someday. Guess you'll just have to wait and find out, huh?" I wink. She chuckles, an amused glint dancing in her tired eyes.

I tell her about a random thing that my friends talked about at lunch. After I finish the story, I glance over to see she finally fell asleep. I chuckle under my breath and reach to grab her empty mug.

"Good night, Blondie." I stand up and grab the extra blanket folded at the foot of her bed, draping it over her. I don't want to risk trying to get the blanket from under her and waking her up, so this lighter one will have to do. I pull my hoodie off over my head and lay it on top for extra warmth.

Neither of our doors squeak as I get back into my room, fortunately. I double-check to make sure my alarms are set for the morning and crawl into bed, glad I brushed my teeth and changed before I got tired. Another car drives by, lights dancing across the ceiling, and I drift off to sleep.