3:30am

I close my eyes and rub them with the heel of my hand before opening to take another look. Nope, it wasn’t a lie. It is, in fact, 3:30am. I groan, rolling away from the bright light that’s so rudely reminding me that I am not asleep. I breathe in, hold for four, and breathe out. Breathe in, hold for four, and breathe out. 

Nothing. Still awake. I open my eyes, and it’s as if a jolt of energy has gone through me. Open, close, open, close, nothing. When I went to bed at 10:30pm, I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. I had laid propped up on an ungodly amount of pillows, my comforter to my chest, and a book nestled against my legs. My eyes had started to droop just a little, then a lot, then so much so that I abandoned my reading, took off my glasses, and turned off the light. All I wanted was to go to sleep. 

But now, it’s 3:30am, and I am completely awake. Aware of every sound in the apartment. Every creak from the walls as the building settles. The sound of the heater kicking on and rumbling through the vents beneath me. The faint sounds of cars outside. I lay on my back, hands clasped over my stomach, and stare at the ceiling. And I listen. 

I haven’t slept like this in years. As a kid, I remember waking up at odd hours of the early morning when it was still dark and the world was still quiet. It was a moment to curl back into the warmth of the blankets before going back to sleep until my alarm blared. I remember lying in bed after my mom tucked me in, staring at the ceiling and feeling like I would never, ever, sleep again. I remember waking up every hour on the hour in college from stress or bad dreams, I still don’t know which. But now, I’m 30, and there is no real reason for me to be waking up this early in the morning. Not after an extensive and religiously followed nighttime: an air purifier on the second setting, a small fan facing my bed, lotion slathered on my hands, a lip mask applied, the remnants of a candle lit and blown out ten minutes before bedtime so that the room still carries the scent. But tonight was different. Tonight, I slept like a kid again. 

I reach for my phone, but hesitate. No, I’m not going to resort to scrolling through social media, or online shopping in a delirious state. That has never brought any good. Instead, I stare at it. It would be nice to get my mind off of things. To think of something other than what the morning will bring. Maybe I’ll just look at my Amazon wishlist again, or see how many people liked yesterday’s Instagram post. Just ten minutes of scrolling, that’s all I need. But, of course, 10 minutes will turn into 20, which will turn into an even 40, and before long it will be time to get up. No, I can’t take that chance. 

I turn around again and the blankets catch me like a caterpillar caught in a cocoon. I close my eyes, hoping that the simple action will make me fall asleep. But my brain won’t turn off. It knows exactly what it wants to focus on: the sun rising, rays of light cascading through the curtains, birds chirping and cars starting and my neighbor’s front door closing so loudly in the hallway that I can hear it from inside the apartment. And me. In my bed. With a pool of dread sloshing around in my stomach. And my phone on the nightstand next to me, also waiting. Also dreading…

…I have to have enough self-control to look at my phone for just a moment. It couldn’t hurt. I just won’t check my email. Or my texts. Or the Instagram DMs. Or the missed calls piling up. And you know what, maybe I won’t even look at yesterday’s Instagram post because really, who can ever handle looking at who liked or didn’t like your post? But I could still scroll, just for a teensy-tiny bit.

I hear my therapist’s voice in my head: “You could take deep belly breaths. It’s one of your coping skills.” I could lie here and stare at the ceiling and continue to think. “You could do some meditative yoga poses.” I could drink a cup of warm milk, that’s what they do in the movies, right? “You could take a walk around the apartment, focus on the different colors and textures and smells and identify them.” I could look out the window for signs of life. “Move to the couch, change your environment.” Sit on the couch and watch the TV until it lulls me to sleep. Or, again, sit here and think. As if I’m in time-out. 

There are a few problems with that: I can’t daydream, I’m far too worked up for that. I can’t think about the day before, that will make everything worse. And I can’t think about the day to come. One thing taken off the list. I will have no choice but to try everything else on the shared list of therapy-based coping skills and home-remedies. 

I lift the blankets off, shivering as I expose myself to the cold air. It’s early November and, while the heat has kicked on, there’s still a chill throughout the apartment. It’s not helped by the fan whirring in the corner. I wriggle out of bed, stand up and stretch. Even more awake. I am even more awake. How on Earth can I be any more awake than I was before? It doesn’t matter. First on the list: yoga poses. 

My room is average size for a Chicago apartment. A queen bed takes up the far wall, along with a nightstand and the ficus my parents gave me as a housewarming gift. Underneath the bed is a rug that fills almost the entire room, an old faded style with muted reds and yellows and off-whites. There is a dresser painted a dusty rose along the far wall; a dark green, almost black, bookshelf next to it; and the doors of the closet are framed by little disco balls that reflect the moonlight as they dance hand in hand around the room. 

I sit down, let my ankles kiss, and close my eyes again. I take air in through my nose and let it fill my lungs. I hold it in. A few moments where all I can feel is air circulating and blood pumping. And then I let it out into the room with a jagged “woosh.” I repeat, in and out. In and out. I move, slow and soft, with the flow of my breath. From the floor to all fours, palms spread on the rug, fingers digging into the fabric. I lift my hips, the crown of my head looks to the ground, my eyes stare at the alarm clock, upside down. I feel the blood rush upwards, and I feel it behind my eyes. My therapist also told me to picture things — sensations — in order to ground myself. “Picture the feeling entering your body through the top of your head and when you exhale, picture it leaving through the tips of your toes.” So I picture it: the blood flowing through my body, like water in a river, making its way upstream. Dropping off into a lake at the top of my head, bringing heat to my ears, making me open and close my eyes. I exhale, and I picture it coming down, settling at the surface. I snake down, moving with my breath, bringing my stomach to the ground. I lift into cobra and my body stretches, from my toes, up my legs, up my arms, and to my chest. I take a few more deep breaths, and then I release to the floor, roll on my back, and stare at the ceiling. I lift my head to see the time: 3:50. 20 minutes and… still awake. I get up with a quiet groan. The room is dark, but I can start to see. I won’t turn on the lights. I want to trick my body into being tired. I shuffle through the apartment to the kitchen. 

I love my apartment. There is something about it, a kind of comfort that feels almost like magic. It emanates and here, in the middle of the night, I feel it at its strongest. It’s a mix between intruding and welcoming. I never see the apartment asleep. I never see the moonlight reflect on the off-white walls, the white cabinets, the renter-friendly back splash, the plants, and knick-knacks that leave only enough room for cooking and the dishes. The island on wheels I had hauled up multiple flights of stairs just so I could feel like I was on the Great British Bake off. The posters and framed photos and small pieces of artwork meticulously hung on any inch of free wall space I could find so that the walls don’t seem so drab. There is a warmth to the apartment, even when bathed in silver. I feel like I’m seeing something I’m not supposed to see. Of course, it’s much more beautiful like this. 

I open the fridge and search. I see the carton of milk, and my stomach turns. It doesn’t matter what they show in the movies, the thought makes me sick. On the main shelves, boxes of takeout, Tupperware with leftovers ranging from a few days to a few weeks old. On the side, a bottle of fancy lemonade and cans of diet coke neatly stacked. None of it looks like it will lure me to sleep. Water maybe could, but then I will have to pee. I close the fridge and switch to the living room. “Change your environment.” Or, I can turn on the TV and watch something until my eyes get heavy and I have to fall asleep. Sure, it isn’t my bed, completely primed for optimal coziness. But that didn’t work earlier anyway, so I’ll try something new. 

I sink onto the couch, grab the throw blanket off the back, and wrap it around my legs. The room is colder than my bedroom, so I pull myself further inwards. With a jab of the remote, the TV turns on with a loud roar. 

“Shit,” I mutter, stumbling to turn the volume down. Surprise sends a jolt through my body. Just enough to start the timer over. Again.  

An episode of Gilmore Girls plays on the TV. A part of a 24-hour holiday special. I allow myself to sink into the couch cushions and rub my chin against the soft fabric of the blanket. I focus my eyes on the screen, letting them droop, so as to trick my brain into thinking it’s going to fall asleep. Rory is about to be broken up with on the dance floor. I try to let my brain train in on it, focus on her heartbreak, on her drama. Better hers than mine. A sliver of calm works its way into my body. My heart slows. I focus my eyes on the TV…but then I get bored, and I focus them on the wall above. More posters, paintings, and pictures. More plants that suspend from the ceiling. More disco ball garland. More light dancing hand in hand against the wall. Another room I love. A rug I got on Facebook Marketplace. A dark green sectional sofa whose cushions you can sink into like quicksand. A wing back chair with a matching ottoman. Bookshelves reclaimed and filled to the brim. And in the empty spaces, pictures. Pictures of me and my parents. Pictures of me and my brother. Pictures of me and my friends from high school laughing with the joy of girls who didn’t know how hard the world got. Pictures of me in college. Pictures of me and Harriet. Pictures of me, Harriet, and our other college friends. Pictures of us on graduation, where I secretly worried we would never see each other again. Pictures of us in Maine last summer, proving me wrong. My heart twists. It was a mistake, thinking I could avoid it all. With sleep? Maybe. But awake? In a house filled with everyone and everything I have ever loved? Reminders of my greatest joys and my biggest fears? Foolish. 

“Everyone can see, Rory! Everyone! And I’m tired, but I’m over it, so go ahead, go, be together. There’s nothing standing in your way now, because I’m out.” 

I turn back around and face the TV, but the slight feeling of calmness, the faint sense of peace, is gone. Dean is walking away from Rory and my stomach is back to turning in circles. I can feel my heart start to thud like a tennis ball being thrown on the ground in an empty court. I feel it in my body before my head even forms the thought. My chest is tight, and it’s as if books are being taken from the bookshelf and laid one by one on top of me. My head is fuzzy. I can’t focus on the TV, so my eyes move around the room. I bring them back to the TV. Discomfort. Unease. 

I look towards the open door of my bedroom, where I know my phone sits. I know without looking that there are no new messages. No new calls. Not since yesterday. That’s what great about the middle of the night. Everyone else is asleep. Everything else is on pause. There are no interruptions or protrusions into this space. And yet, all I can think about is tomorrow. Tomorrow, and how I wish this could stay forever. This feeling of…freedom? Freedom that whatever was hard, whatever may lurk, is gone for right now and can just wait. Until tomorrow. There’s a comfort in the knowledge that right now it is just me and the Gilmore Girls in my dark apartment. But discomfort lingers here too. 

I get up and wrap the blanket around my shoulders. It drags behind me like a cape. I approach my bed and with only a bit of lifting and leaning, I fall down onto it, blanket drifting down over me. I inhale the sheets. They smell fresh, like crisp spring air on a Sunday morning. With the smallest hint of vanilla. A book is lifted. I let the blanket melt against me, heavy on my back, heavy on my arms. It holds me down and my eyes begin to close. One, and then the other. Sleep drifts over me like a long-lost lover. 

***

“What are you doing here?” Harriet asks. She’s folding laundry in a living room, but it’s not the one in Chicago. It’s different. The walls are sage green and there is a big cream couch she’s sitting on. Nothing like her current living room, eclectic and second hand. There are toys all over the floor. She looks slightly older, but only by a year or two, and her hair is pulled back haphazardly like Harriet always styles it. She has a bump – she must be in her 3rd trimester. She looks tired but still happy. Still Harriet. 

“What do you mean?” I ask, stepping forward. I land on a Lego and I wince at the pain. Harriet doesn’t notice, she continues to do the laundry. 

“I thought you hated coming out here.” She doesn’t sound like herself. She sounds cold, serious, and she doesn’t look up when she speaks to me. 

“I don’t hate coming here, what do you mean?” 

Harriet meets my eyes and quirks a brow. She gestures to the room. The floor where toys are strung as if they are the wreckage of a tornado. A stain on the edge of the couch that looks like chocolate, but might be something else. A pack of crayons half-unpacked sitting on the coffee table, not too far from where Harriet puts the clean laundry. A piece of construction paper nestled underneath the corner of the crayon box, with a stick figure family drawn on it: three people and one star labeled ‘mommy,’ ‘daddy.’ ‘me,’ and ‘baby.’ 

“You know this isn’t your cup of tea. All the stuff. All the chaos. It’s too messy here, there’s too much going on.” 

I scoff. “How is this too messy? Have you seen my apartment? I live with enough organized clutter; I could write a book about the art of cozy maximalism.” 

Harriet smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Why don’t you go back, Margaret?” 

I wince at her words. I can feel the heat of the blade as it swipes my stomach. It hurts more than the Lego. “Why would I go? Do you want me to go?” 

Harriet says nothing. She just stops talking. Continues folding. Her pile is getting taller and taller. 

“Do you want me to go?” I ask. I’m feeling impatient. My chest is tightening, and it feels like someone has taken their hands and squeezed. I wait for something to burst, but nothing does, I just stand in buzzing discomfort. 

Harriet says nothing. She looks up at me, and her eyes have something I can’t quite recognize in them. Something not good, something unlike her. I feel a sickening heat start in my stomach and rise up my neck to my face, burning my cheeks and the tips of my ears. It’s the feeling I had when we had our first fight Junior year. But worse this time. She looks…almost resentful. Like part of her hates to even see my face. 

“Harriet, say something,” I plead. She doesn’t comply. She stays silent, and I don’t know if it fuels my fear or my anger. “Harriet, come on.” 

She smirks. And it makes my stomach plummet. Shocks roll through my system and the world tips upside down. This can’t be Harriet. Harriet wouldn’t look at me with this cruelty, this anger, this resentment, this…hatred. She wouldn’t make me feel as if she doesn’t even see me, but someone she truly despises. 

“Say something!” 

My head shoots up and I’m suddenly awake again. And panicked. My hair is plastered to my cheek and my back feels sore from laying on my stomach. I can feel my heart racing. The heat, the anxiety, the pit in my stomach are all still growing even though the dream is over. I look around: I’m in my bedroom, which is in my apartment, which is in Chicago. No sage green walls, no cream couch, no stains, no toys, no Legos, and no family drawings. No house I don’t recognize in a place I don’t know. No Harriet doing the laundry. Just me. In my dark apartment. In a city I know. 

I crawl to the top of the bed, propping myself against the pillows and slipping my legs under the sheets. I look at the clock. 5:30am. I’ve managed to sleep, but I don’t feel rested. Instead, I’m on the tail end of a rollercoaster, settling down and swallowing down bile that’s rising in my throat. My phone screen is black. I don’t know what I’m wishing for: her name to pop up? A call just to tell me that she knows me so well, she knew I had a bad dream and to reassure me that it wasn’t real? I feel shaky. Because it felt so real. And she looked at me with such disdain. And thinking of that look and the way she told me to leave makes the pit drop six more floors, and the bile rises again to my throat. 

I can’t keep sitting here. It’s not helping. My stomach’s twisting and my chest is constricting, and my head feels heavy like it’s been swallowed in a dense fog. I crawl out from the covers, return the blanket to my shoulders, and venture to the living room again. It’s still dark and quiet, and I can hear the padding of my feet on the floor. I stand at the window and pull back the curtain. The sky is a deep blue, so dark it’s almost black, but there are hints of the light, creeping at the horizon. A neighbor from across the street leaves their building and walks to their car, wrapped in a jacket and a scarf. A woman jogs by with ease. I breathe in the slight smell of morning air that’s crept in through the window pane. I breathe out, leaving a smudge of fog on the surface. Another book leaves and floats back to the shelf. 

My fingertips rest against the cold glass and I bring them up to touch my cheek. The cold shocks my skin and from the place where my fingertips touch the skin of my cheek, it spreads through my body. I picture it: ice blue waves, flowing from my head to my toes, circulating and cooling the surface. Another weight lifts, and I take in a breath that, this time, doesn’t get caught in my throat. I watch some fear begin to leave. A sense of calm, a sense of peace. 

I open my eyes and turn to look at the bookshelf. There are picture frames littered between books. I walk over, and I’m met with the smiling faces of me and Harriet on her wedding day. She looked so beautiful, in an ivory gown and a veil with tiny gold stars. I’m standing next to her in a midnight blue dress that wraps around my neck and drops in the back. She is looking at me with what I can only describe as true, unconditional love. And I am fixing her veil, fanning it out with a broad smile cracking my face wide open. My fingers trace the gold frame and its tiny textured stars. Harriet had made it. A thank you for her special day. Emotion wells in my chest and I feel it like an ache, unearthing cracks and then bleeding out across my body. I move to the next frame. Me and Harriet in college, sitting in a restaurant booth, laughing and holding large fountain drinks. Another: Harriet and I with our other friends in Maine, lounging on the beach. Harriet has a book across her stomach and I have a floppy summer hat covering my head. I crawl on top of the couch to get a better look at the messily decorated pink and green frame mounted on the wall: Harriet and me in our first big girl apartment, holding our keys in front of the door. My heart pulls, the ache deepens, the cracks open wider. We look so young and happy. Our smiles are wide and there’s a glimmer in my eyes that I notice right away. I want to climb through the frame back into that moment. A random day in June years ago when everything was perfect – or at least less altered by time. 

And the knowledge that I can’t threatens to break me. I slide down onto the couch, kneeling on the cushion. I can’t go back in time. I can’t return to that moment, when we were young and nothing else mattered and there were no significant others or babies on the way or houses in the suburbs waiting for them. As much as I ache to go back, I can’t. Instead, I’ll have to linger in the sadness that the things we live through, we’ll never get to live through again. “Or you can find happiness in your life right now. You can find hope in the change. And you can realize that you will never have control over this.” I will always be the victim of this game. “But you can still be happy.” And I can still love my best friend. And I don’t have to lose her. Not to distance, not to time, not to anything. No matter where she has been, no matter where I’ve traveled or moved, no matter how often I’ve seen her, she has always been home. Parts of her are in this apartment; in the pictures on the walls, in the disco balls we found at a craft store, in the ultrasound photo framed on my desk, in the comfort of this apartment and the nights we have spent here, growing up. Parts of her will live within me forever, no matter where she goes. Or where I am. “That will last forever.”

A tear slides down my cheek. I brush my fingers against it, spreading the salt across my skin. I’ve always hated change. I’ve never been quite able to get over it, when something leaves or becomes something different, and I cannot return, not even for a moment, to feel what it used to feel like again. At 30, I live in a constant trap of nostalgia that hurts so bad sometimes, I wonder how I will ever be able to get through it. Or how I will ever be able to understand that time will move on and so will I. How I will begin to accept that this life is not forever and neither are these moments, but at least the feelings are. Really, when I search through the muddiness of sadness, I know that no matter how much time has passed, I still feel the happiness I had with Harriet when we moved into our first apartment. And I still feel the joy of seeing her on her wedding day. And I’ll always remember the joy of when she told me she was pregnant, despite my immaturity and fear of change. Those feelings will be my reminder. My path to the past. And I will have to be happy with that. 

I shift until my body lays flat on the couch. I close my eyes, a tear or two still falls. But sure enough, they are slowing down. I take deep breaths and the books begin to lift. The ache remains, but the books, all of them, begin to return to where they came from. And I begin to drift…

***

Sunlight filters through the windows. It cascades over my head and onto my legs, bringing soft, warm morning heat to my body. I open my eyes, blinking slowly to take in the change: the apartment’s awake. I sit up and shift my legs to my chest and wipe my hands across my face. Despite how awake I was last night, I’m now plagued by sleepiness. I smile – how ironic that the exhaustion waited until now, when the day has begun. Standing up, I shuffle to my bedroom. My phone is where I left it on the bedside table. No new calls. I bend down to pick it up, but hesitate. Instead, I climb onto my bed, shuffling under the covers, pulling the duvet up to my chin. I open the phone and look at the lock screen picture. Me, Harriet, and her husband, Owen, staring back at me. Laughing. Happy. I smile to myself before an ache rips through my chest again. I hate the way I handled things. And the things I said in hurt and anger. And the way I acted when my best friend told me something she was so excited about, and the way I let my heart break over something I would never be able to get back anyway. I mourn the way I should have celebrated with her. Even if it brought tears to my eyes and I had to hide away and wipe them on my own, because I love her enough to accept the change as something new. Because she is my family and my home, and the family she creates will be that for me too. 

The phone screen has gone dark, so I tap it again. My cheeks are wet, and I take a sharp inhale, trying to steady myself. “You can communicate thoughtfully. You can do hard things.” My fingers move. I don’t have to think, I just swipe, and type, and press. It’s as if my body finally knows what it has to do after a temporary setback. A momentary lapse. And now it all falls together again. The phone begins to ring, and I feel a sob catch in my throat, and I swallow it down. I can’t be crying already. I have to tell her I’m sorry first–

“Maggie?” 

My body betrays me and the sob breaks through and the dam breaks and tumbles down. “Oh Harry…”