Emily did not like taking sleeping pills. When she was not on them and someone asked. She could simply say she did not like the way that they made her feel. But now that she was back on them. She knew that the person who she was when she was not on the pills, was severely understating the effects the pills had on her.
When she took them, Emily did not sleep, she faded. Hands, knees, elbows, nose, heart, lungs…every single piece of her just went away bit by bit until there was nothing left.
Then in the morning when she woke up, it all came back, but not really. It felt like she spent the whole day trying to rrbuild herself and then just when all the puzzle pieces were almost back together again it was night time. And night time meant that she had to take the pills again and undo all of her progress, leaving her back where she had started…faded.
And so the cycle continued. She spent the day learning how to be human again. How to laugh, how to smile, to cry, to feel. Then at night, the pills took it all away. She was the humpty-dumpty of sleep.
But she was getting sleep.
The one reason that she had begun taking the pills in the first place.
The grass is always greener on the other side. She kept reminding herself every time she wanted to quit. Taking the pills had drawbacks( so many drawbacks). But ever since she had begun taking them she slept each night. That was a good thing.
She focused on that instead of how she faded away when she took them. Or how on the really bad nights, the pills did not just help her sleep they kept her there. Two giant hands keeping her under water as she drowned in ice cold waters. The pills not letting her wake up even as she was hung by a noose made of her own clothes. Tiny boxes stacked on top of her until all the light and air left, her death slow and painful. A hand around her throat, squeezing slowly. Not letting her breathe even as she was suffocated by a person that she could not see.
Sleep was sleep, even if each night meant a lifetime of infinite deaths, Emily was still sleeping through them, and for that she was grateful.
So no matter how scary her dreams were, or how much she began to dread the night. Emily still swallowed down the pills, and each night…she slept.
She slept and she slept, and it did not matter that with each passing day. It not only felt as though she were drowning in her sleep, but when she was awake as well.
She slept, so it did not matter that she did not do any of the things that she loved doing anymore. No longer spending time with her mother. Simply excusing herself so that she could be away from the older woman's worried gaze.
She slept, so the fact that Lucas had started giving her smug looks in the hallways at work did not matter. She slept, she woke up, she worked, and then she slept some more. The sleeping pills were giving her more sleep than she knew what do to with.
She slept, and she was grateful. She just had to keep repeating it enough times and her body would get the message and finally stop feeling so horrible.
She was sleeping, that was enough. She slept each night, and for that, she was forever grateful. She was grateful… she was grateful…she was grateful…she was grateful…she was grateful…she was grateful…