Sleep was a joke. A cruel, cosmic joke told by a universe that had never been funny.
I lay in bed and stared at the crack in the ceiling. The crack stared back. We'd been doing this for hours. It was our thing now. The crack and I had a more stable relationship than I'd ever had with any human being. It didn't ask questions. It didn't want money. It just existed, quietly, imperfectly, like me.
Okay. Fine. If sleep won't come, I'll outlast it.
I got up. Padded to the kitchen in my socks—the ones with the hole in the left heel that I refused to throw away because they were comfortable and also because throwing things away required emotional energy I didn't have. Made tea. Not coffee. Coffee at midnight was a declaration of war against tomorrow, and I was trying to be kinder to future Deia
