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“Bro, why are you awake? It’s like three a.m. Didn’t you say you barely slept last night, too?”
Derek jumped and looked up at Andy. He stood in the doorway of his room, wearing pajamas with frogs all over them, and rubbing his eyes while he squinted at Derek.
“Huh. Lost track of time.”
“Are you just looking to get the whole pod in trouble? Lights out was forever ago.” Andy walked over to look at the laptop screen. “Hawaii?”
“Yeah, I thought we should go on vacation over break. Wouldn’t Hawaii be great?”
“Shit, did you-” Andy took the laptop, and Derek’s mouth dropped open in outrage.
“What are you doing? Oi, are you going through my emails?”
“Shit, Nursey, how much have you spent tonight?” Andy clicked from confirmation email to confirmation email. Derek had perhaps been a little overindulgent, but now he felt defensive.
“So what? It’s my money.”
“Not any more, it’s not. Dear Lord, we’re still stuck here when you’ve booked this holiday to the Maldives. And we can’t go to Peru the same week, that wouldn’t work. What the hell were you thinking?”
“You don’t have to go to both if you don’t want,” Derek told him. He glanced around the room, trying to find an escape from the scolding before he lost his well-practiced chill.
“Just-” Andy let out a sigh and pressed a couple of fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Just go to bed.”
“I can’t sleep,” Derek muttered, but he still headed towards his room, tripping over a chair on the way.
Andy Lowry wondered what he had ever done to deserve being made prefect of the dorm. He glanced at the house counselor’s door, but it was still firm shut, no sign of light or stirring. With a sigh, Andy picked up Derek’s laptop and took it into the younger student’s room. Derek was sat on his bed, leg twitching as he looked around the room. He jumped when Andy walked in.
“What’s going on, Nurse?” Andy asked as he sat down at the desk, but all he got in response was a blank stare. “Come on, bro, you can’t be up at three a.m. booking eight people chalets in the Maldives and a hotel for six in Peru and ordering new ice skates and whatever else the fuck you’ve spent money on tonight. What’s got into you?”
Derek still didn’t answer. His shaking had grown more violent, now.
“Derek, please, I don’t want to have to wake up Mr Pinsent.”
He winced and stood up, anyway. It looked like he was going to have to get the counselor. Just as he reached the door, though, Derek spoke. “I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were, Derek.”
“Not you. The other guy.” Derek pointed his thumb towards the empty gap of room between him and the window.
“Nobody else is here, Derek.”
Andy watched in concern as Derek’s eyes bulged wide, then he curled in on himself, his whole body trembling. “Why are you—”
“Hey, Derek, it’s okay. You just need to sleep, okay? Why don’t you lie down.”
He guided the boy to lie down then sat up on the bed next to him, one hand rubbing Derek’s shoulder gently while he pulled his phone out of his pocket.
“Don’t call the police.”
“I’m not, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”
The phone rang six times before going to voicemail.
Hi, this is Leila. Don’t leave a message; I won’t listen to it. Text me instead.
Andy swore under his breath, and searched for his backup.
This time, after two rings, he got through. “Yo, Lowry, brah! How’s it going? I’m so sure you Andover babies should be asleep by now.”
“Hi Shitty. Yeah, we should, but someone had different ideas. Look, I just- I don’t know how to explain this over the phone. I don’t even know what’s going on, but Nursey’s in a right state. Leila’s asleep or something, and I didn’t know who else to call. I don’t want to wake up any teachers for this, he’s- I think he was just hallucinating? And he’s booked like three holidays and ordered a load of shit and- I’m freaking out a bit here.”
“Okay, breathe a moment. Where are you?”
“In his room. I just got him to lie down, but he’s shaking like mad. I think that’s sleep deprivation, because he’s been a bit like this all week, but— Shit, man.”
“When you say he’s booked three holidays…”
“Hawaii, Maldives and Peru. Maldives and Peru both for the same time while we’re still in school, and Hawaii for over Christmas.”
“What the fuck. Okay, so you’ve got to cancel those, obviously. If you can do it quickly online now that would be good, but only if it says you’re going to get the full refund. Otherwise, you’ll have to ring tomorrow during the day, make sure you talk to an actual person and explain that it was a minor who got ahold of a credit card.”
“It’s his credit card.”
“So call his credit card company and make sure the payments are cancelled, and then call his parents and tell them that he shouldn’t have a fucking credit card at fifteen.”
“But the hallucinating…”
“I’m not a doctor, Andy. Fuck, I don’t know. If he’s not sleeping, maybe some pills for that?”
“You think he should go to the doctor?”
“I don’t know shit. Talk to your house counselor tomorrow morning. There’s probably some ‘procedure’ to follow.”
When they had ended the call, Andy sighed. He felt calmer, now, but was still at a bit of a loss of how to handle this. At least it seemed that Derek had fallen asleep at some point during the call, though he was still much too restless. He opened up the laptop again, and went from email to email; website to website; searching how to cancel all the purchases made. He managed to cancel two reservations, and four orders, but the flights would need to be done separately, as would the other holiday home booking and the ice skates. It looked like a couple of other orders had already gone through and were on their way. Andy cursed FedEx for existing. He wrote a note to Derek and stuck it over his phone so that he wouldn’t miss it, and then headed back to his own room to sleep.
It was six thirty when Derek woke up, with no help from his alarm which wouldn’t go off for another hour. Despite only three hours sleep, he felt surprisingly rested. A piece of paper fell onto his pillow when he reached for his phone.
D,
I hope you’re feeling better today. I don’t really know what that all was tonight, but I’m pretty worried about you. I understand if you don’t want to talk to Mr P about it or go to the nurse, but you can always talk to me. I think you should probably call your card company and cancel as many of those payments from last night as possible. I cancelled Hawaii and Peru, but it wouldn’t let me for the Maldives, or for any of the flights, and you’ve still got a pair of ice skates and a few smaller things on their way. You should probably cancel those as well if possible. If you wake up before anyone else and feel like you’re going to go on another spending spree or anything, come and wake me up.
- Andy
Derek had to read the note three times, and he still wasn’t sure what it was on about. Hawaii? Peru? Spare ice skates? He frowned and shook his head. Andy must have had some trippy dream to have written this note.
It was a surprise, to say the least, when he opened up his emails on his phone to find the evidence of the exact shopping Andy had described in his note. There were a couple of cancellation emails, and below them a whole slew of order and reservation confirmations. He dropped his phone on his mattress as if it had burned him. The worst thing was, his finger was itching and there was a bodiless voice urging him to go to Tripadvisor. That his winter holidays had been cancelled, so he had to book more. A sick feeling in his stomach, Derek forced himself out of his room and across the corridor into Andy’s. His muscles twitched, moving faster than he should be capable of first thing in the morning, and when he collapsed onto Andy’s bed, he misjudged the space spectacularly, and ended up in the upperclassman’s lap.
“Wha—” Andy cracked an eye open.
“What did I do?” Derek’s words came out rushed. He remembered, now, but the question was bigger than that. It was about why he felt the need to do those things; why he still felt compelled to turn his laptop back on and start shopping again; why spending money felt like the greatest pleasure in life when he knew that he was going to be in huge trouble when his parents saw the bank statement. Andy wrapped his arms around him, and pulled him down until he lay on his chest.
“It’s okay. We’re going to fix it. Just breathe.”
Derek’s fingers gripped onto Andy’s nightshirt and he shivered until they managed to adjust the covers over the both of them. Breathing was the hardest challenge yet.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he muttered, “Andy?”
Andy grunted, as if he had been halfway back to sleep again.
“Do you want to go to Orlando with me? We could go today, that would be cool.”