Extra Credit - S01 E12

8 months ago

Extra Credit - S01 E12

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 12

Lincoln

Drew's headlights lit up the road as he drove away.

Sometime during the ride back, Sadie had stirred awake. I was hoping she'd fall back asleep, knowing that if she didn't she'd be a cranky-mess tomorrow morning. She didn't end up closing her eyes again, but thankfully, she was still drowsy enough to want to be carried up the flight of stairs to the front door.

I closed the door behind me with my foot, setting my gym bag down in the narrow foyer. It creaked closed. The sound travelled through the darkened main floor of the townhouse and I hoped that if my mom was home that the noise wouldn't wake her up. Dealing with two cranky women was not something I considered a good time.

I kicked off my worn boots before helping Sadie with the jumbo buttons on her coat. The boots were next to come off before I scooped her back up.

"Let's get you into bed, okay?"

Sadie gave me a half-nod, her eyelids heavy.

"Did you have fun tonight?" I asked once I had her changed into a set of cloud covered pyjamas.

Sadie crawled up into her bed. The sheets were still a mess from this morning when I had woken her up to get ready for the day. A gentle shiver wracked her body as she slid into the cool mattress. I made quick work of throwing her duvet over her and tucking her in.

Last winter I had done my best to patch up a crack by her window that was causing a draft. It held up fine, but judging from the temperature in the room tonight, it might be time to check it again.

"California is really nice."

I wanted to scoff.

Nice to you, maybe.

As if it were an afterthought she added, "Her friends are nice too."

"Good." I pushed the stray hair from off of her forehead. "I'm glad."

Before I even had a chance to finish my sentence, Sadie had closed her eyes. She snuggled into her pillow and tugged Beary closer to her chest. It wasn't long before her breath turned shallow and I felt comfortable enough to leave her room.

Ever since Sadie had turned three she suffered from night terrors. They were violent episodes in the dead of night that caused her to scream and thrash around—stuck in a never-ending-loop of nightmares. In the first few months of her experiencing them, the night terrors would strike multiple times a night. For the first six months I slept on the floor beside her bed with the intent of calming her down before she could wake up Mom in the next room.

It never really worked and my mom and I functioned solely off of espresso and energy drinks.

By some miracle, the night terrors became less frequent after those six months. Instead of waking up four to five times a night, it trickled down until we were able to go a couple of nights without an episode.

She didn't have them too often anymore. Maybe twice a month if we were lucky. But the sound of her screaming still haunted me sometimes.

The time on my phone read 12:42am. If I went to bed now I could get a solid six hours of sleep before I had to catch the bus and head back to campus for early morning cardio. Whitmore had an obsession with building cardio into our routine.

"Being able to sock someone is all fine and dandy," he'd say. "But if you can't move, you're a sitting duck. Do you wanna be duck confit, Pierce?"

I took the stairs to the main floor two at a time, taking a sharp left into the kitchen. The open freezer door lit up the room as I shuffled around before I settled on a half-full bag of frozen peas. I was sure this particular bag of peas had been in this freezer for as long as we'd been living here. The perfect ice-pack.