Late Night Studying

Again and again my eyes would scan a line, but this late in the night the words stopped registering. Stopped making sense. My eyes felt dry and heavy, and then there was the yawning.

“I’ll just rest my eyes…” I’d taken to mumbling things to myself. The silence of the texts were driving me mad. “Just for a second,” I insisted.

But it wasn’t for just a second, and I knew it was foolish of me to believe it. What woke me was the clock tower above me striking the hour. Four loud bongs then silence. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and stared at the pages in front of me. None of it made sense and I sighed. Then yawned. I sat up leaning backwards, pressing my hands to my eyes, perfectly content to drift off to sleep again.

“You should get some sleep.”

I know… I thought to myself. And then I realized the one speaking was not myself and jumped.

“Arcturus!” I yelped, turning in my seat to face the nosey, big-nosed jerk. “What are you doing here?” My voice felt unnaturally loud in the still quiet, caught somewhere between a whisper and a shout.

“I’m pretty sure you know the answer to that by now.”

And he was right. As usual. Which I knew was really the reason he got under my skin so easily. I’d hardly told him a thing about why I was here and yet he seemed to know. It was unnerving and infuriating.

“But,” he continued, “I’m still wondering what you’re doing here.”

“Thought you already knew,” I mumbled before turning to my books once more. You could practically hear his eyes roll without so much as a glance. “Look, I’m not going to tell you, okay? I don’t like you one bit and you’re last person on Heaven or Earth that I want helping me.”

“Ouch.” He didn’t sound a bit wounded.

“Go away, Arcturus. Just go away.”

I didn’t hear any footsteps to signal a retreat and when I turned to stare him down I nearly had a heart attack. He stood right behind me, silent as an owl, peeking over my shoulder at the books on my table. “Arcturus!” I screeched, pushing him away. “Don’t sneak up on me!”

He stumbled before returning to his unwelcome reading and I continued to shove. It had very little effect on him, but I persisted. “Go. Away!”

“Stop pushing me will ya?”

“No. Go away!”

“Why won’t you let me help you?”

“You want to know why, Arcturus?” I stopped pushing him and instead rose to my feet, drawing up to my full height, though unfortunately he still towered over me by a few inches. “Because as much as you think we angels are full of ourselves, you are no better. You think you’re better than anyone! Better than me! And after spending my whole life surrounded by people like you, I’m done! I’m done deal with people like you! So back,” I place my hands on his chest and pushed, “off!”

He went down easily this time. I glared at him from above, daring him to rise and challenge me. His expression was hard to place, masking whatever he really felt. But I dared to hope I’d hit home and made him feel a fraction of what it felt like to be like me. Hated for who I was. At least for him I bothered to hate his awful personality instead of judging him by his plumage.

I should’ve felt proud. Accomplished even. A battle won, right? But no. I was so tired. The wall I’d built up began to come down and I felt tears escape my eyes. I wanted to be angry but there simply was no energy left in me. My shoulders slumped, my knees buckled and I fell to them.

“Artemis?” I heard him say, his voice hoarse. “Are you okay?”

I shook my head, my tears had already stolen away my voice. No. No I’m not okay. And for a moment I wanted so badly to pretend that he actually cared. To pretend that he was Apollo and I could curl up in his arms and cry without him thinking less of me.

But he wasn’t Apollo. He was Arcturus. And I knew these tears would come back to bite me. So I stood. And I wiped them away. And I slowly walked away, leaving behind the books. I didn’t care if he looked. Right then, I didn’t care if he knew. I just wanted to sleep.