.

"Really?" I asked rather surprisingly.

"I don't know, he just said he wants to know me and be friends." Liz murmured, while playing with her spaghettis on her plate.

"Liz, we don't even know him." I said, "also don't tell me you gon do it just to ride his Porsche." I joked, just to make her feel comfortable to talk it out confidently.

"Aaaah, finally. You get it, don't you?" She jumped up excitedly.

I raised my eyebrows and settled to a frown, "What?" I ask confusingly.

"The moment he drove down his Porsche I couldn't resist that view, that car, omg." She talked, over-emphasising all her expressions.

"So you wanna be friends just to ride his car?"

"Come on. Don't make it sound miserable. Its a 911 Carrera 4 Cabriolet, damn that beauty." One thing I didn't mention about this maniac is that she's a car freak, an obsessive one.

"So you don't like that guy or anything as such?" I asked, gathering all the dishes and putting it to the sink.

"Are you crazy? That guy dropped my coffee, ruined my boots, followed us all the way back home like a freak, and wants to be friends without any bonding. Like, that's so unlike us." She said, helping me out with the dishes.

"Absolutely. Although he brought us new drinks and even apologized. How do you know you can trust a stranger out of nowhere?" Putting all the dishes in dishwasher, while Liz cleaned the table- I wanted to make sure my friend wont do anything stupid to herself just to get in that car.

"I know, that guy is a creep. That's why we're gonna take our time to analyze him and if he turns out good, we be friends and if not then we mess with his car and never see him again." she says mischievously.

"Wait, we?" I chuckled. "Are you totally gonna ignore the fact that he likes you?" She gives a doubtful look while arranging back the tumblers I just washed. "He fricking stared into your soul, gave me a 'get lost' look so that he could get to talk to you alone. And he did say he came all the way back just to see you." I explained.

"He might, but he perhaps thinks I'm a freak cause the way I reacted back in cafe and that- made him curious towards me. He's eventually gonna hate my existence." She sighed.

"You sure?" Liz is the kind of girl, who once decides what she's planned to do has the crazy drive to accomplish it some way or other.

"Yeah, trust me. Like I said, if a creep- we ditch. If not, we enjoy ourselves." She shrugs while giving a silly dance.

"You sound like a bitch." I laughed, accompanying her to the living room.

"That I am. And you never know Faye, this might be a beginning to a new friendship, too."

"Mhm, hopefully." I sighed, "Netflix or game night?"

"Netflix baby!" We jumped onto the couch, turning on the TV and watched whatever we found interesting.

*****

"Alright, I might doze off anytime. Turn off the TV while you go." She yawned.

"Where you thinking to sleep?" I asked, visibly awake and sleepless.

"Right here." she mumbled.

"Yeah right idiot. You go sleep in my room, imma go to my sister's room." I said getting up and turning the TV off.

"You sure?"

"Yes Lizzzz, Get up!" I poke her cheek.

"Okay." She gets up lazily, while her eyes are still closed she walks to my room quite skillfully and waves at me, "Goodnight boo!" she had a long day today, and I appreciate how she could even withstand all the traveling, the shopping and binge-watching movies for couple of hours without collapsing.

"Goodnight." Not that I was tired. Instead now comes the most difficult time of the day with the most tiring task- to fall asleep.

Every night since the last few months, falling asleep has been one of the most anxious task to do. With all reminiscing of the old good days and the fear of unknown, the unending pit of loneliness and sleepless eyes, yet an overly exhausted body- sleeping felt like a burden. Hence, rather than struggling to get some sleep which is gonna take forever, I preferred to change my night-time routine into something relaxing.

I started with reading Sci-fi books to help me with wilder dreams if not better, then moving on to writing the thoughts that haunt me away from sleep. As the days went by, things to write down gradually declined and repeated thoughts reappeared. So after that quick but mildly useless attempt, I do my skincare routine with some soothing music in the background. Then onto listening to some ASMRs or sleep inducing music, which is optional. After all the hustle, sometimes I peacefully fall asleep while other nights seem longer than an eternity.

Tonight was one of those nights.

After 2 hours on twisting and turning under the comforter, not even a hint of sleep seeped in. So I got up and headed to my room to check if there's anything to bore myself to sleep. I slowly open the door, making sure I don't wake Liz up.

"Hey, Faye?" She whispered.

"Holy shit!" I started as a squeal but it ended as a whisper. "Did I wake you up?" I blindly walk to the bed, when she suddenly switched on the lamps to blind me even more. "Goddamn it, Liza Swan" I chuckled and collapsed on the carpet beside the bed, with the sudden exposure to light.

She laughed amidst apologizing, and bent down from the bed to help me up. "You okay?" she continued chuckling.

"I hope so." We sat on the bed and laughed for about 2-3 minutes if I'm not wrong.

"Aah, I missed this." she giggled while laying back to the right of the bed. She gestures her hand beside her indicating me to lay down. As I follow, she keeps talking "I awoke around half an hour ago and I'm not getting sleep since then." She sighed.

"I haven't even slept for like 5 minutes." I say making myself comfortable by her side.

"What were you thinking?" She asked, turning herself to laying on her stomach while leaning her head on her hand.

"Everything?" I chuckled.

"That's terrible. Would you wanna share?"

"We don't have that long portion of the night left to discuss all that." I shrugged.

"We ain't sleeping anyway so might as well listen to you." She said, "I know this started since Luke left, your sister told me once."

"No, quite a bit earlier than that." I nodded, "I don't know Liz, after he left I never thought it affected me in anyway. And I never blamed him for anything, my head convinced me it was all my fault and perhaps it is." I shrugged.

"Why do you think its your fault?" she questioned the obvious, but the one I never had an answer for.

"Because I saw the signs and I should have backed out, if not worse."

"But you had to see how low could he steep, didn't you?" I didn't know how to respond to that so I lightly shrugged my shoulders, "You never really left behind all of him." she continued sounding firm, "That man never must've hurt you physically but he broke you to pieces and you didn't even notice."

"What makes you think I'm broken? I'm living alright." I said, after pondering upon her words for a while unable to form a response.

"It's visible, crystal clear- Faye." she chuckled, now jumping up to her sitting position, as if she were preparing a rant to blow on me. "I've seen you grow by my side, and I know what are you and what hurts you, you don't have to communicate it. To me it's all obvious.

"I might sound like a fool but I know you better than you know yourself, the same way you know me better than myself. Since you pushed him out, you've stopped letting anyone in or even initiate any sort of that feeling." She said with all her seriousness, but that triggered me for no reason.

"Liz, enough of all the parenting, okay?" I groaned, slowly getting up from under the comforter reluctantly. "Go back to sleep if anything we can deal with it tomorrow." I felt myself drowsy but that must've been the comfort of my bed and the warmth of it.

"You sleep here!" she said excitedly. "I swear I wont say shit and we can peacefully fall asleep. And I wont take 'no' for an answer cause your sleep is a wacky one and we don't need to mess it up by changing it's resting place." she pulled over the comforter to her side, dabbing the exact place I was seated, indicating me to 'hop on' with her expressions.

"Okayyy." I hopped back in, "I'm sleep deprived, so I'm sorry for my behaviour." I whispered mockingly.

"Hmm. Apologies accepted. But I'm never wrong."

"Well I did not say tha-" before I could defend myself, she tickled me to the point where I couldn't breath without snoring like a pig, as she laughed all the while at me.

*****

One thing amongst all the signs of a bad day for me is the doorbell early in the morning. It wasn't even around 5am, when some foolish decided to ring the doorbell for 10 minutes straight. Liz decided to go forth and see who it was to bombard them for ruining her sleep, but instead came back to the room tiptoeing.

"Faye," she whispered, "its that guy." she whispered even lower. "Coffee shop trippy guy."

"What?" I groaned in frustration, "At this time?" I looked upon the clock to see the time which ticked sharply at 5.

"Ugh what do we do? He wont stop ringing the goddamn bell." She said now clasping her ears close with her pillow.

"You go get it. Tell him to fricking get lost!" I said also clasping my ears tightly.

She was filled with rage and she wanted to back off but I didn't have the calm- to face that man at this hour, so for his wellbeing I urged her to go for it. She threw the pillow at me and groaned her way out of the room.

The bell was still off and I felt every vein in me scream in agony with the effect of the veil sound on my ears. I got up to see where Liz was- when I saw her running back into me and gasping for air heavily.

"You go open it, that creep is all dressed and has some gift box sort of thing with him." she said hiding behind me as though he could see right through the door.

"So what? You wanted to ride his car so face the consequences." I scolded her.

"The hell? I don't even remember his name." She groaned, begging for me to open that goddamn door. "You guys didn't even introduce each other, so do it. Once I know his name I'll take over, I promise."

"You remember what car that guy owns and what model it is, but you don't remember what his name is? Ugh, you'll owe me this." I groaned, stomping my way to the door. I was getting frustrated with each step taken, let alone seeing that face.

The door sprung open and there I stood eyeing him with rage while he stood there smiling like an idiot. I peeped behind to see Liz watching the conversation from behind the couch.

"Who are you?" I said, grinding my teeth to calm myself.

The smile dropped his face and I give him an annoyed look before turning the bell off. The bell switch was distorted since a longtime- so when he pressed it tight, he didn't realise the switch got stuck in and hence the bell kept ringing for 5 damn minutes. This realisation now hit him like a truck and his face grew apologetic.

"You must've been sleeping, I'm so sorry." He said, peeping in for a while. I crossed my arms and my face remained frustrated, so he continued without any reply. "And also the bell rang for so long, I didn't realise."

"Who are you?" I questioned again, as though I didn't remember him or at least didn't want to.

"I'm Khalil, from the cafe last night?" He seemed confused, and also grew suspicious of my presence. "Your friend Liza- I met you guys...."

"Okay, Khalil. What the hell do you think are you doing here at 5 in the morning?" I said, pitching my voice a lil higher.

"Oh hi Khalil." Liz jumped out, seemingly calm and welcoming now.

"What are you doing?" I whispered and she nudged me while whispering, "I got this from here, go."

I deliberately walked inside after that weird conversation but I know I wasn't gonna fall back asleep so instead I go to the kitchen and made myself a toast and some coffee. As I walked out of the kitchen and off to my room, I heard both of their voices in the living room.

"Seriously?" They both turned their heads towards me, "What is he doing inside?" I asked openly, "What's your problem, owl head?" this I whispered, didn't wanting him to react on that.

"Let's go Faye, we gotta talk." Liz tilted her head, giving a death stare towards me while I frown in reaction.

____________________________

Hello lovelies, if you read then don't forget to vote and share it would mean the world to me. And thanks for being here, ily.