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It's probably not wise to let two insomniacs drive across the country, is it? Two-and-a-half days into their pilgrimage, Jay can feel sleep eroding her bones, especially her face. It's like her eye sockets are widening, weathering away with the years of exhaustion really being put to the test with these multiple days and nights she's had to stay attentive for hours. She has a hard time falling asleep sitting up, but feels weird shuffling to the back seat to curl up for a few hours. There'd probably be little sleeping getting done, anyway.
The duo of girls spit on their circadian rhythms and have been functioning on a reverse sleep schedule where they try to get some shut-eye from about dawn to lunch or so, then drive into the evening and night. While they aren't on their lonesome anymore, paranoia doesn't need to be addressed. It just sits like a law in their immediate minds. It's nice to have company that can understand.
Tim—the girl whose car this is—mumbles over the music thumping through the speakers that she'll probably stop in maybe a half hour or so for the night. Her passenger wordlessly unfolds a printed map and her eyes wander over their highway. She says there's a town not too far ahead, probably in a couple dozen miles and they agree to find a spot for… final meal, whatever that means. That usually means breakfast food, but it's filling and full of protein and fat so it's not all that bad to fall asleep with in your stomach.
Jay mindlessly scrolls her phone and skims her eyes over the paper map again, looking for a place to stop until she feels she's got enough of a hold on the upcoming area to put it all away. Data's expensive. She goes back to hugging her spindly knees to her slim chest while staring outside for a bit, then gets restless and flips through the binder of CDs that came with the dame and her steed. Tim's got a pretty big music collection and her player can hold like, 8 discs at once. Jay's already looked through this a few times, but the printed colors fire a few neurons to keep her stimulated for just another moment. The dusky sky gives her enough light for now. She's allowed to pick music when she drives, burden of the driver and all.
Reaching the end before she'd like to, she zips up the binder and sticks it back where it was in the back seat. She's in her inconspicuous bag at her feet again. She can basically feel Tim's eyes glancing every so often, pretty deprived of stimulation as well. Tim's got one hand on the wheel, the other lying limply while her elbow's propped up on her raised left knee.
Jay flips open the dusty rose 3DS and keeps the volume low while fumbling through games that aren't piquing her interest, restlessly settling on checking her Nintendogs again. The driver tenses up with a yawn, melting at the release into a puddle the vague shape of a person. Jay's voice cracks slightly as she mumbles the passing signs for the suburban town they'll stay in today.
Jay's head is on a swivel while listlessly looking for a place to stop. She fiddles with the lace hem of her dark blue leggings, knees still close to her. She eventually points to a local diner named after the vague influence of a relative, its neon sign on and a couple bent heads loitering inside. The eggs'll be cheap and chalk yellow, but it's better than fast food, kinda. She slips on her muddy sneakers and zips up her hoodie while they pull into the parking lot.
Tim holds the front door open for her, mumbling a short 'you're welcome' when Jay forgets common gratitude while pulling down the shorts over her leggings to fit better after all that sitting. There's a short, awkward exchange of 'sorry's that're too tired to flare into a proper confrontation or argument interrupted by an aproned waitress behind the red bar waving to sit wherever. Jay crawls into a booth with a window before Tim can even make eye contact to start a dialogue.
Sitting opposite, the table top is vaguely sticky from years of patrons coming and going, the grout in between the linoleum tiles a color so much darker than its original hue. They sit in faint, fluorescent-humming silence, too exhausted to even attempt a conversation. Tim leans back in the booth, arms behind and along the tops, muttering how she may go take a smoke but can't find it in herself to get up.
The waitress passes by with a water and mug of warm water anyway, and Tim shakes out a pill from the bottle she stuffed into her big jacket pocket and downs it with a few sips. Jay warms her hands with the plain ceramic mug.
It's an uneventful breakfast-for-dinner, Jay picking at her plate for a bit then giving what's left to her companion who doesn't take it immediately. She gently presses to try a little more, even offering some of her side waffle she hasn't touched yet. When her coaxing doesn't work, she sighs lightly, forking the uneaten half of the breakfast sandwich and cutting into it on her plate.
Jay stares out the window, a gentle drizzle starting up as the sky shifts lighter and lighter. More cars speed pass on the nearby 4-lane and a couple more people enter the warm diner, seeking shelter from the fall morning.
Her video camera by her hand, she can't even remember bringing it in. She picks it up and does a quick sweep of the diner, oblivious or just not caring a couple of the patrons side-eye the device. Tim looks up cautiously from her food when it passes over her. The camera's set back to its perch atop the napkin dispenser so it can keep watch out the window. Believe it or not, this is better than it was a few meals ago. Jay had to be told gently it's hair-raising to waste storage space on footage of them tiredly stuffing their bodies with enough nutrients to function for another several hours. The camera's been off a little more frequently as the trip has dragged on, even if Tim's grown slightly more accustomed to its all-seeing eye.
She stopped eating a bit ago. Tim pulls at one of the quarters of her waffle, not trying to rush and get indigestion on the road. As she saws with a butter knife through tender cake, Jay feels her head turn like a compass seeking true north. Sure, she's used to Jay's gaze by now, but Tim gets the hint and politely asks if she's sure she doesn't want any. They both seem a little surprised Jay changes her mind and says she'll take a piece, but she does nibble at it and get it down.
The meal's paid for with scratch-off wins Tim managed to pull on a random desire to break from the monotony for just a second and Jay forces the squeaking door open, letting the warm air out into the aether while waiting for Tim to finish paying.
Jay has always had a hard time keeping her gaze good and acceptable. The worn-in camcorder has plugged its prongs into the tender gray fat between her eyes, becoming part of her. It's her third eye—a brilliant machine that can send tangible information to her computer to prove something exists, that she exists. These packets of information can be shared, shown to others to… what, plead? Recruit and ask for help? Keep the forces that be, the spawners of her insomnia-laden malaise, from inserting themselves back into her life, dragging and forcing her to get closer to whatever horrible thing is on the horizon?
It's a lot of nonsense to think about. She's too tired for all of that. The few remaining sparks of brain power she has left have to be reserved for decision-making, just a little longer.
Tim's bartering with a girl at the front desk of the first motel they spotted off the side of the road with the 'VACANCY' sign on, the girls matching one another's sluggish energy with mild but polite annoyance. Jay lingers behind, camera in her hand but limp by her side. Trying to get a room day-of at such a random time doesn't leave many options. Front-desk-girl with an illegible name tag just won't budge and offer anything other than a single queen, or a family suite.
Arranging her cards back in her leather bi-fold wallet, Tim stalls and drags her feet back to the car for one final push on the gas pedal to coast into the parking spot closest to their room.
Simple bags do the trick so thankfully they don't have to haul big suitcases in and arrange them best to be out of the way.
When the controlled air of the room washes over them from the doorway, Jay remarks on the obvious with a mild tone of bored contempt.
Tim sighs and mumbles there's nothing she could or can do about it, that she's sorry if it makes Jay uncomfortable, but they have limited options. They can't sleep in the car. It's just not safe.
Jay responds dryly, almost disinterested in the conversation as she looks for more comfortable clothes she packed in her crash bag for nights like this.
There's a couch by the door. Jay goes to change and check out the bathroom. She comes back maybe a minute later and Tim offers to sleep on the couch but it's obvious she'd really rather not.
Jay says it's fine if they share.
Tim asks if she's sure.
Jay shrugs, cold, long hands seeking her own sparse warmth, holding today's laundry close to her as she stands in indoor clothes.
She's at the window, not relying on her eyes alone, bringing up the camera to wash over the sleepy parking lot one more time. Tim catches her off guard and she jumps when she asks if there's something out there but she manages a mumble, assuring her with simple words that they're alone.
It's just after 7am now. Jay draws the blackout curtains shut while waiting for her turn at the bathroom sink, poking around the extra spaces like the closet and mini fridge like a cat checking everything out in its new enclosure.
They don't crawl into the queen bed at the same time. Jay bundles herself in the bleachable comforter while letting her eyes glaze over while vaguely looking in the direction of the small TV playing local news at a reasonable, low volume. There's no fluffy banter, teasing or established chemistry of any kind for there to be a comforting nighttime dance. Tim won't come out half-dressed from the bathroom and toss a damp towel at her, faux-scolding her for having the box turned on so early. The awkward, heavy quiet is a mute witness to a shaky alliance between two people that sort of worked together years ago on the same, cruddy student film at a school neither of them has been to again in years. She doesn't even know why Tim goes by 'Tim.' She's nice enough. Maybe she could ask.
It's been a long time since Jay was alone.
She thinks of this passively while staring up at the ceiling. She fiddles with the sheets under the comforter. She felt the bed shift when it wasn't just her anymore, even if Tim tried to ease in and not bother her.
It's like trying to navigate a room where it's all made of glass. A wrong move will have everything crack and shatter, ruining the shaky, polite peace wordlessly agreed upon by strangers. Jay switched off the television when Tim settles into bed without being prompted because it's probably the right, less awkward thing to do than have to be asked. The consequences of fumbling around a little in the presence of strangers is ultimately pretty nothing, but Jay feels the pressure right now. She should just think about and be mindful of social regulation.
Her mind is an untappable space that can only be wiped, never extracted. In the comfort of secrecy, she entertains her thoughts, letting them play free before she forgets them in any new, chance encounter.
She turns 90° from her back to her side, watching in the gloomy grayscale Tim's figure rising and falling with even, automatic breathing. She's not asleep yet. Insomnia is their shared curse. Jay knows she's not asleep. Her shoulders are slightly broad for a girl, but not too broad. She isn't very tall, either. She punches mean, though. Jay sucks her tongue at the thought of it.
Jay can catch the cigarette smoke clinging to her hair if she breathes deep enough. Maybe she can't. Maybe she's imagining it. Tim usually showers at the end of a day, but she didn't today. Jay doesn't know her schedules and routines enough to make any sort of judgment of what's normal, what's irregular.
With nothing better to do, she lets her thoughts free-range as long as she gets to observe them.
She wonders if Tim would shrink away from the glide of her fingers on her back. Tim's short, dark hair covers a healthy portion of her neck but doesn't hide the mole planted between where her back ends and her neck begins. She thinks about brushing the invisible baby hair fuzz with deft, ghosting touches while planting a simple kiss to her neck.
Jay tucks her cold fingers around her waist, trying to keep her digits warm. She goes through the effort of imagining what she should feel if she reached out, physically and in her head, but she ultimately has no desire to see these thoughts come alive. There is a draw she feels for Tim, but she can't name it. It's a desire that doesn't want to be realized.
Tim isn't like normal girls. She's nice, easy to work with even if they fight sometimes, but Jay never blames her for how she acts, not really. Tim's good at keeping her head down. That's not why she's different. If she weren't blessed with curves, she'd be pretty hard to pin down. Not in an androgyny way, or an absence of gendered features, but because Jay's been watching her pluck stray facial hairs in the mirror for the past few days and doesn't get their bras mixed up in the laundry.
Jay's fascination has shifted, changed directions a little since the antique store break-in and loitering outside that mental health clinic. They keep one another at a hesitant arm's length but will scramble back for the other if one of them stumbles in the dark. Jay wants to stare at this strange, taut string of fate keeping them together for as long as it holds. She worked so, so hard to make contact with this woman, spending weeks and months of her life wondering, thinking, planning, and trespassing to just get a taste of a hint of an inkling she could keep the terrors away, solving this mess sooner.
It's nice to not be alone. It helps manage the paranoia.
But she wonders that, like a cold, her fears will simply mutate and she'll catch a new variant of wariness.
Is it any better to sleep next to a stranger than alone? Jay recalls the footage she posted so long ago of the masked person stationed as a sentinel over her while she slept. Is this better? Sharing sheets with that same figure? Has her insomnia made her foolish?
There's a want that's metaphysical but simple to find and place its source. She'll get these spells of tunnel vision for places, things, people, and she just can't let them go until some sort of trigger releases her from its grasp. She kept tabs on Alex for months and only changed course when it got too dangerous. Her perusing spirit never died, it redirected and found Tim and Jason. She still doesn't know much of her—only what she's forced to expose through totheark confrontations or close encounters with Alex or just plain arguing has Jay has she gotten anything at all. She's not owed anything. None of this is entitled to Jay.
What's entitlement to desire? Jay hasn't ever been in a relationship. Not a real one, anyway. Is this desire? As she chews and thinks about Tim—her and Tim—Tim and her—there's no drive to swallow. She could force it, but would that be any good?
Jay didn't get crushes on guys like the other girls. She realized that way later when she lost a couple friends in school, her curiosity was always either too much or too little to be 'normal.' Going out of your way to follow a boy home after school for 3 weeks because you like the color of his hair in the sun isn't the move, apparently. She wanted to reach out and touch not for a mutual gain, but to feel the texture of skin or the softness of hair—a tactile experience closer to that of enrichment than romance or other pleasures. Jay wondered if she were homosexual for a pause, but the distaste those around her had for the lifestyle and the conclusion that her feelings for women were almost identical to what she felt for men dismissed the idea for future Jay to ponder.
It's not something she thinks about, not actively, really. It doesn't bother her. She doesn't know if she'll see tomorrow. She can't worry about a man or a future.
Tim is… Tim is a solid presence, though. She has the benefits, the good qualities of a woman, and fills out the slot of a man with her steadiness. Jay knows this is one of many arbitrary things that draw her in.
Living in the quiet suburban South and spending so much of her time alone, Jay's made to think of how others immediately perceive her. Another layer, another fold in her paranoia, her girlhood is sometimes a target. Her figure is slight and her feminine qualities are in her voice and dress, but these changeable traits make her a target. Predestined to the arm of a man, Tim is… Tim is safer. She thinks she'd be handing a part of herself over, laying it down to rest if she made something permanent with a true man. It would mean going to the store after dark less scared, things like that, but she'd lose that independence, get a taste of heterosexual domesticity and let it mix with the sickness she's trying to kick out.
Jay doesn't think about her gender much, constructing it or deconstructing it, but she sees its influence. Her presentation is sort of something that just happened, that it's fine because it works how she needs it to. It's difficult for her to think of it the same way for Tim, but she tries. It's just who she is. It's how she's comfortable. Like how Jay needs to surgically remove every tag in every piece of clothing that comes into her abode, it's about what's comfortable. No one can help how they're born. Jay knows she's never been in contest for her looks. She frankly just can't bother to care. She notices when someone's conventionally attractive, but there's never that spark within her that can relate to the attraction directly. The curiosity she feels for them is clinical, distant, not personal or with an enmeshing plan. The girl she sleeps by is like Jay: plain, simple, and in her own lane. The draw Jay is at the whim of isn't like back then.
It isn't fair. None of it is. Jay knows she's picking at someone just living her life, walking around just as scared of her of the dry cough that wracks her body. She thinks in circles and knows it'll never get her anywhere but lower.
Is this a crush? Is that what it is? She can't remember the last time she had one. Has she ever?
Huh.
…Jay doesn't know how to deconstruct a crush, how to tell if she's got one.
Could it be envy? It's not like Tim's safe from being hunted and scared, but not a lot of other people mess with her. There's a power to that. Does Jay want that? They're both plagued by all the same nightmares, tying them together. Are they really so different? What's there to envy?
It's not hate or anything like that. There's some anger and frustration sometimes, but it's rarely directed at Tim herself. She's good at having positive and negative convictions that keep the two moving forward. She makes decisions fast and admits when she's wrong. These don't come naturally to Jay in the same way, so it's more an admirable trait than disgust.
…Admiration. Is that it? That doesn't feel right, either. There are qualities to admire about her, but there simply isn't anything striking enough to draw her in at the acquaintance stage. She catches scents and whiffs of things that could grow from understanding, but Jay can't know.
She shifts from abstract ideas drawing her in and thinks about the physical. Is she attracted to Tim? Her qualities and features, the way she makes Jay feel, that line everyone else can see but Jay can't. She thinks more unique features are interesting. Ugliness isn't a bad thing; being boring to look at is worse, she thinks. Tim's got dark, smooth hair that isn't quite a bob but isn't short enough to be a pixie, either. Jay doesn't know much about hairstyle names. She keeps a healthy portion of her facial hair unplucked around the ears. Her lashes are straight but her nose isn't; both are long and take up a lot of her face. Her eyes are closer to her nose compared to Jay. Her figure is sort of like a box without much of a waist or curvy definition to her legs. Her chest and butt are more pronounced and obvious compared to Jay's, but it's not like it's a competition. Jay hasn't decided if the mix of everything clashes or complements. Her first thought is that the way she looks are like the neon features of an animal warning others to stay away, but Jay corrects herself and reminds herself of comfort, how what feels good and right isn't always for others.
That could be part of it. She sympathizes, even if she's on the other end.
For a breath, she wonders what would happen if she reached out and touched her shoulder, lightly trying to coax her to turn over so she can take in what she looks like again. Maybe she's forgotten. What would she do if she got her way? Would she want something closer? What if she closed the space, curled up close and let their warmths mingle to protect themselves against the fall chill? What if Tim draped her arm over Jay's waist, pressing their beings flush so breathing has to be thought about, accommodating and adapting for comfort? Jay's never kissed anyone on the lips before. There's never been a need. Would it be okay with Tim? Is she romantic? Is she already spoken for?
As Jay imagines the brush of hard-working hands pushing away hair from her face, she thinks of how neutral and sexless Tim has always been. There's never a mention of a partner, the turn of a head at the passing of a beautiful stranger, or playful, flirty comment that leaves her lips. As willing as she is to team up, she's otherwise so reserved. Would she know how to kiss? Does she know how to change Jay's mind, make her feel… want with love?
Tim.
She hopes she turns over.
Does Jay want to be noticed? She likes hiding.
Tim.
Tim.
"Tim."
Her shoulders go rigid under the covers. Tim lets silence hang for a moment but whispers, quietly and concisely asking what's wrong.
Ah. Jay … accidentally vocalized a thought, it seems.
Tim asks if she can move, if it's safe, and Jay plays dead.
Her heart is in her fingertips, her ears, her chest.
She's shuffled and faces Jay with her body, her face, her attention, almost surgically. Exhausted but alert, she sits up slightly and sweeps the room before lying down again. Hushed, she asks again what's wrong. She looks over Jay with quick worry, who waits for the capture of any emotion or stimulus response her body and subconscious blurt out. Anything—Anything at all would be enough. Anything to reveal she's not too lost, that she can feel what everyone else does.
Of course, there isn't anything.
A look is supposed to set her skin and bones and organs on fire, right?
With mostly closed eyes, Jay watches as Tim reaches out a hand but hesitates, gingerly touching Jay by the shoulder then shaking her lightly when there's no reaction. Jay fakes a sudden start awake, pulling air in through her teeth. Tim apologizes lightly, hand scalded and retreating back to safety a couple feet away. Jay mumbles and squirms and yawns, not having to act a lot to seem groggy.
She's asked if she's alright, if there's something wrong, but she feigns ignorance. Tim said she heard her name and Jay slurs that she must have sleep-talked, that it happens sometimes.
Tim sighs through her nose, letting the night hang and the HVAC cushion the silence, eventually relenting and sinking back into bed. Jay wraps her arms around the down pillow a little tighter.
The touch wasn't bad. She felt it through her sleeve. She hasn't had touch in so long. Maybe her body's forgotten and doesn't know what it's missing. Maybe her numbed senses need to be broken in again, made to take in and then long for touch. Maybe she needs to let her thoughts and feeling simmer. Maybe something will come of this. Maybe there's still time.
[Fin.]