Sleepover

"This is gonna sound super gay -- which is fitting -- but do you guys wanna have a sleepover tonight?" Landon asked.

"Hell yes," Remy said.

"Where are we gonna stay?" Emmitt asked.

Landon suggested, "How about Renee's room? She gave me a spare key; we could facetime her later, and it'll almost be like normal."

They all agreed to this plan and spent the night all huddled on one twin sized mattress watching '80s movies on the DVD player, which they had all grown to love.

"Three boys, one bed. What could happen?" Emmitt said, wagging his eyebrows up and down.

"I could kick the both of you off onto the floor," Landon suggested.

"I was thinking something involving less violence, but ideas are always helpful, so good thinking, Landon."

"Will you guys shut up and watch the movie?" Remy shushed.

The boys fell asleep while on facetime with Renee. They were all clustered on the bed, many limbs hanging off it as they all fought for more room. Each guy fell off the bed at least once throughout the night.

Remy woke up on the floor of Renee's bedroom, looking up to see Landon's head hanging off the edge and a few of Emmitt's limbs dangling over him. They all had a terrible night of sleep. It turns out that three young adult men are too large for one twin sized bed. Who would've thought?

Remy stands, feeling tired and achy from his carpet of a bed. He falls back on the other bed in the room. For whatever reason, it never occured to any of them to take the other bed. Sure, it didn't have a blanket on it, but it would have been better than the dirty floor.

He had planned to get up and get some shit done, but the call of an actual bed left him sleeping for several more hours.

"Dude, wake up," Remy heard a groggy voice say as his shoulder was jostled back and forth.

"What?" He said without opening his eyes.

"It's already noon. We gotta get to our classes."

Remy sat up and looked around sleepily. Landon was standing in front of him, but Emmitt was still resting peacefully. "Why does he get to sleep in?"

"Because I already woke him up, and he just went back to sleep. If you want to miss a full day of classes, go ahead."

Remy checked his phone for the time. "I've already missed two classes. I guess I better go to the rest of them. Especially after missing a bunch yesterday." He walked tiredly over to Emmitt, shaking him irritatingly. "You can't miss class. You're gonna be so fucked if you skip another day. You'll never catch up."

Emmitt grudgingly got up. They all said goodbye, going to their separate rooms to get dressed.

Remy trudged through another day of college classes, a little more focused on Renee than the schoolwork.

When he was done for the day, he went to his room to collapse into his bed, which had become a daily tradition for him. He was so worn out, he hadn't even noticed that Allen was in the room with him.

"Hey," he said in an uncharacteristically friendly tone.

"Heeh," he mumbled back.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't feel like it, but what happened to that girl?"

Remy turned his head from its position in his pillow to stare at Allen with exhausted eyes.

He looked away, "Sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

"Nah, it's okay. I'm just tired." He closed his eyes, but continued talking. "Her name is Renee. She's one of my best friends. Some stuff happened to her before this school year. She's been having a hard time. And she didn't want to feel bad anymore. So she tried to take the only way out she saw for herself."

Somehow he said that whole thing indifferently, like he was just describing his day. Allen chalked it up to his fatigue and fell back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling. Allen didn't know what it was like to not want to live. His life was the way it was, and he never questioned that. Never thought that life was something that you could just... not want.