While I Slept Ch. 01

It's not fair. Why do I have to be like this? Why does everyone else get to sleep like normal people, while I lay here in bed suffering, tired yet unable to sleep?

Such were the thoughts that plagued 18- year- old Jasmine's mind at 3 o'clock in the morning, or rather in the dead of night, depending on how you look at it. These thoughts, along with her condition, had been plaguing her for almost a year now. She didn't need a doctor's opinion to know that she had insomnia. She'd tried everything both she and her doctor could think of: medications (and a great variety of them), changes in her daily routine and sleep patterns, meditation, different diets, hypnosis, relaxation techniques, and other methods of treatment all to no avail. Well, to be honest, she had not tried everything that her doctor had recommended. Cognitive behavioral therapy, her doctor had called it. Her explanation of what it was supposed to do for her was missed by Jasmine, however. She'd tuned out after the word 'therapy.' The very idea of it turned her off. After the events of this past summer, despite the advice of those closest to her, she didn't even want to consider letting someone probe her mind, her innermost thoughts and fears. No thank you.

So there she lay, in bed, at 3 o'clock at night, unable to sleep for more than a few minutes before waking up again. To make things even better, she had her first class at 8 in the morning, general biology with about 50 other college freshmen. There was no way that she would be able to pay attention, if the last few months were any indication.

She was so caught up in her thoughts that she just barely heard the knock at her door.

Knock knock knock. "Jasmine, you up?" The person at her door stopped and laughed quietly. "What am I saying? Of course you are." And with that they opened her door, not bothering to wait for a proper invitation.

"Why, do come in. I was only trying to sleep, but don't worry about it," she responded, feeling irritated. "Hey, you know what? The more, the merrier! Why don't you invite your girlfriend and all your other friends while we're barging into people's rooms? Make it a fiesta!" She could feel her temper rising, but her lack of sleep as of late sometimes caused her to abandon her usually calm and rational demeanor, and instead lash out, often at her roommate just as she was right now.

"Jeez, calm down, Jas," he said, flashing an innocent smile." I was just coming in here to check on you. I could hear your heavy, woeful sighs all the way from my room. I thought I'd be nice and check up on you. But if I'm bothering you," he said as he raised his hands in a show of mock surrender while slowly backing out of the room," then I'll just go."

He kept his hands up and his piercing blue eyes on her as he continued to back out of the room, all the while wearing his innocent smile. 'He's always been one for theatrics,' Jasmine thought to herself, but she could admit that she was acting bitchy and decided to remedy the situation.

"Wait, Garrett," she hesitated trying to gather up the courage to apologize. "I'm sorry," she got out through clenched teeth. She had never been good at apologizing to people, regardless of whether or not she was truly at fault.

"Wow, what a great apology." But he was already walking back into her room, smile still in place. He took a seat at the edge of her bed and she sat up to give him more room, while unconsciously pulling the blanket up further to cover herself.

"No," she sighed, "seriously, I'm sorry. I'm just being bitchy because of my insomnia. Please forgive me," she said, pushing out her bottom lip in an adorable-looking pout.

Garrett laughed, then lightly ran his thumb over her bottom lip. It was quite normal for them to touch each other or show affection in this manner. "It's alright. I understand. I'd be grumpy, too, if I barely got any sleep for a year. Honestly, though," he furrowed his eyebrows in consternation, "how do you do it?"

As he awaited her reply, she thought over the past year and she herself wondered just how she had managed to avoid completely breaking down. She had no idea. She recalled the time when her insomnia was so severe that she had gotten not even a minute of sleep for 4 days and started to hallucinate that there were tiny holes all over her body. Garrett had just moved into the apartment with her at that time and had been pretty freaked out by her behavior, though he did succeed in calming her down. And that time about 6 months ago when she collapsed in her Spanish class. Rather extreme, yes, but she had been much better lately, as far as the symptoms went. Her doctor told her that it was better to get intermittent moments of sleep than absolutely no sleep at all.

While she thought, Garrett took the opportunity to look over his roommate. He noted her disheveled appearance: her hair in disarray, the bags under her eyes, the lack of energy in her eyes and voice. Regardless, she was still a beauty. He loved her long, flowing black hair, chocolate brown eyes, full lips, caramel-colored skin, and curvy body. He often wondered why she didn't have a boyfriend, before remembering that she was too concerned with her condition to care about having a one. Still, she was absolutely stunning. She was also quite possibly the smartest, kindest, and most charismatic person he knew. He loved hearing her speak Spanish. Her family was from Mexico, though she had been born in Memphis. She spoke it perfectly, however. He could listen to her forever, even though he only understood about 50 percent of what she said. She was teaching him, slowly but surely. She had even taken to speaking Spanglish in his presence, regardless if there were others with them or not. They always got a laugh out of seeing the confused expressions on everyone's faces. He found it amazing that she could switch between the two so fast. He had only known her for about 6 months, which was well after her 'incident' that she had always refused to talk about and after her insomnia had developed, but even so, he had always admired her.

"You know, Garrett," her words brought him out of his reverie, "I honestly have no idea. Maybe it's because I have my big, strong Gare-bear here to protect me," she finished with a smile on her face.

"Wow, I could've sworn that we agreed that you would stop calling me that."

She scrunched up her face. "No lo recuerdo."

"Oh, how convenient for you."

She laughed under her breath, then said "I thought you were sleeping at Emily's apartment tonight. Why are you home? Not that I don't enjoy your company, of course."

"Yeah, I thought I was sleeping over there, but apparently so did the other man in her life." His voice was relatively calm as he spoke, and even carried a bit of a humorous tone. This confused Jasmine, but she decided that she had simply misheard his tone.

"Ay, that bites. Sorry, Garrett."

"Meh," he said with a shrug of his shoulders. "It's whatever. She said it was because I wasn't paying her enough attention and because whenever I'm with her, I always seem to be somewhere else. Honestly, I couldn't care less. I'm already over it."

He spoke with such calm and conviction that she immediately believed him. She didn't know why exactly, but she suddenly felt invigorated. Garrett had been dating Emily since they were both 15, four years now, but Jasmine had never liked her. She always seemed... off somehow.

"Well, in that case, don't obliged to invite her to the party."

Garrett laughed whole-heartedly. Jasmine had a weird sense of humor, but he loved it.

"Yeah, let's just make it a party for two." With that, he scooted closer so that he was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with her and pulled the blanket over himself. He could feel his leg resting right beside hers. Garrett was wearing a pair of shorts. Even at night, the hot summer air would not let up, as was typical of southern Tennessee. Garrett had taken to sleeping in just his underwear, and so apparently had Jasmine. He could feel that she had no bottoms on, and from accidentally rubbing his bare arm against her side, he discovered that she wasn't wearing a shirt either, though he couldn't tell if she was wearing a bra or not. Though he couldn't see it, the thought of Jasmine sitting almost completely naked beside him caused his groin to start throbbing.

"Jeez, Jas, I know it's hot, but I doubt it's that hot. Are you even wearing a bra right now?" He threw that last bit in for his own benefit.

Jasmine looked down as though she were embarrassed, then quietly responded, "No, burro, you're not supposed to wear bras to bed."

"Why?" he asked.

She contemplated for a moment, then looked at him and cocked her head to the side. "You know, I honestly don't know. My mom just told me to never wear a bra to bed. Besides, I've done it a few times, and it's not really comfortable." She seemed to have gotten over her initial embarrassment.

Garrett certainly wasn't complaining. He longed to look under the blanket to get a good look at her. He was starting to get hard, and adjusted himself to ensure that Jasmine wouldn't be able to see it through the blanket. He may have wanted her, but he didn't want to freak her out and ruin their relationship.

"Interesting," he said nonchalantly. He searched for a way to change the conversation in order to make his hard-on go down. "So, has your doctor convinced you to try therapy yet?"

"Ugh. No. And she never will. I don't know why she keeps asking. She knows my answer is always going to be no." Jasmine didn't like this line of conversation. It made her remember things she'd rather not think about at all.

"And you still won't tell me what exactly the 'incident' was?" He had asked her about this several times and had always gotten the cold shoulder, but some part of him really hoped that she would eventually come to trust him enough to tell him.

"No," she responded without hesitation. "That stays in the vault."

"Okay." He knew better than to push her about this. He still had hope.

"But she did recommend this new drug. I forgot the name of it. I'm going to go pick up the prescription tomorrow."

"What are the chances of this one working?"

Recently, Garrett had started to feel more involved with Jasmine's insomnia and always wanted to know what the latest new was. He really cared for her and didn't like that she was suffering. He had even done some research to try to help her with her condition, though, like everything else, nothing had helped. She was grateful for his attention to her, though.

"Pues, it's an experimental drug. But it's gotten good results so far, so why not?" At this point, she would try anything. Well, anything except therapy.

"Experimental? That doesn't sound safe," he said, growing worried.

Jasmine paused to look at him. She noticed the frown marring his perfect features. Jasmine had taken to calling him 'the best kind of eye candy.' In her head, of course. His blue eyes, ever-present 5 o'clock shadow, short blonde hair, and rugged jawline were to die for. He was muscular (but not too much so) from when he used to be point guard for his high school varsity team. He was considerably taller than her. 6 feet to her 5'6". What she like most about him, or rather his appearance, was his eyes. Piercing blue. She liked to think that they pierced through her exterior and that he intuitively understood her better than most people, and most of time, it felt like this was true.

"No te preocupes. I'll be fine. And if I die, at least I'll finally get some rest." She smiled wide at the end.

"How morbid," he said, his frown still there.

As they spoke, they got absent-mindedly got closer and closer, until they were leaning against each other. Garrett had his arms crossed, and was lightly tracing Jasmine's side with the back of his hand. He didn't know why he was doing it, but he did know that he didn't want to stop. He was uncomfortably aware of his hard-on at this point. He had never been this hard before, and he hadn't even seen anything, let alone done anything. He longed to do something about the throbbing, preferably with Jasmine, but he didn't know how she would react. But when she put her head on his shoulder and moaned so lightly that he just barely heard it, he began to think that she was similarly affected. They sat in silence for quite some until Garrett ventured to break it.

"Jas-"he started.

"Shh...I think I'm starting to fall asleep.

Well, shit. I sure as hell can't say anything now. Far be it from me to deny her sleep.

And sure enough, she did fall asleep, leaving Garrett to his own devices. He thought about his current situation while he sat there. He didn't know when exactly he had developed ... a thing (he didn't know what to call it; he didn't think it was either love or lust) for Jasmine. It may have slowly developed the more he got to know her, then all of a sudden one day, he realized that he was more than just simply attracted to her. He loved being in her company, thought she had a wonderful personality (even if she was 'bitchy' due to her lack of sleep), and thought she was absolutely beautiful. He thought back to what Emily had told him about being not there emotionally and thought that she may have actually been right. He found that his thoughts usually revolved around 5 things: school, basketball, food, sleep, and more often than anything else, Jasmine. He didn't know what his feelings were for her exactly, but he knew that he just wanted to be around her as often as possible.

Carefully, he turned to look at Jasmine and, finding her still asleep, placed a chaste kiss on her forehead. Rather than risk waking her from her precious slumber by trying to get out of her bed, he closed his own eyes and fell asleep right beside her, without relieving himself.

Jasmine was wide awake well before her alarm went off at 6:30. She had gotten out of bed around 5 after yet another restless night. She left Garrett alone in her bed after tucking him in. He looked so adorable with his mouth wide open and drool coming from his mouth. At least he didn't snore. She would have had to kick him out if he did.

Jasmine scavenged through the kitchen (they were the stereotypical broke college students) and managed to find food for breakfast. She decided to make pancakes for the two of them. Normally, Jasmine hated cooking with a passion (it went against her feminist roots) but she could be moved to cook every so often. Something about the time she and Garrett spent together last night made her want to. About 15 minutes later, she went back in to her room, carrying two plates of pancakes.

"Gare-bear," she said in a sing-song voice.

He started squirming and groaning at the disruption to his sleep, but did not wake up. 'Your average teenager,' she thought wryly. She decided to take more extreme measures. She set the plates down on the bed, walking over to where Garrett's head lay, and bent her head close to his. She briefly considered kissing him awake before dismissing the idea. 'Too sweet,' she thought. Instead, she pursed her lips together and let loose the loudest whistle that she could.

"What the fuck!" Garrett said with a start. He shot right up and just barely missed head-butting Jasmine. His heart racing, he paused to gather his bearings, then looked up at the source of his near heart attack. He regarded her with clear disapproval.

"Who the eff is up at this ungodly hour. Oh, wait a minute." He shot her a sharp look. "And what the fuck was that for?" he asked.

"You weren't waking up," she replied defensively, "and I made pancakes."

"You made pancakes? Seriously?" He looked at her intensely, eyes wide, his anger completely forgotten. Her cooking had this effect on him. He'd never admit it to his mom, but her cooking was the best he'd ever had. It was a real shame that she didn't cook very often.

She gestured towards the foot of the bed to the plates of pancakes. "Ah, then all is forgiven." He flashed her a smile before grabbing a plate and diving in.

"Um, excuse you, but last I checked, my bedroom was not a dining room."

"But you eat in here all the time," he countered.

She gave him the evil eye, which encouraged him to stand and walk with his plate to the kitchen. "Thank you!" she called after him before following along.

They ate breakfast together while making small talk and cracking jokes until Jasmine left to go get ready for class. 30 minutes later, they parted ways, her to her class, and him to his.

A few hours later, Jasmine was done with all of her classes. It had been difficult to pay attention as she had expected, but she had made it through the day, and was now on her way to pick up her prescription. Though she had grown pessimistic about her chances of finding anything to help her sleep, she silently prayed that this would work.

When she got home, she was welcomed by the most delicious scent. Though it most certainly pleasant, this was not a normal occurrence in the apartment by any stretch of the imagination. Her mind set off in a million different directions. 'Did Garrett cook? Did he buy food? Does he even have the money for that? Did he do something bad and cook in order to soften the blow? Oh, god, what if it's really bad news?' The more she thought, the more panicked she became.

As she slowly entered the apartment, she rounded the corner into the kitchen and was greeted by the sight of Garrett wearing her purple apron, and he was indeed cooking. He had his back to her, so she could not see what it was. She ventured further and peered over his shoulder to see that it was a lasagna.

"Hey, roomie. How was class?" he said without turning his back.

"It was fine," she said. Her tone of voice made him turn around.

"What's wrong?"

"Pues..." she started, but couldn't quite finish.

"Well what? What happened? Is something wrong?"

"Kinda...Since when do you cook?" she finally got out.

He laughed before replying "Since now, or more precisely, since about an hour and a half ago. It was actually kind of easy. Just followed the recipe. I went grocery shopping, too. It's done now, if you want some."

"Um...sure. Aren't you just full of surprises?" She gave her a crooked smile.

He made a plate for the both of them, then they sat at their tiny table in the kitchen. She was pleasantly surprised by how well he did on his first try.

'So, I got the pills today."

"Really?" He still seemed at odds with her taking an experimental drug, but he knew how desperate she was.

"Yeah. It says I have to take one thirty minutes before going to bed. So, wanna kill some time for the next..." she paused to look at the clock on the stove, "two hours?"

"Sure," he replied.

They put their dishes away (they didn't need to be washed immediately; they'd get around to it a few days later) and made their way over to the couch in the living room. They plopped down right next to each other, and after a brief battle for the remote (which Jasmine won), began to watch her favorite movie, Resident Evil: Retribution.

Without thinking, Garrett put his around Jasmine's waist and was instantly reminded of the events of last night. He thought about pulling away to avoid any temptation, but Jasmine snuggled in closer to him, put her head on his chest, and laced her hand through the one that was on her waist. The way that she was sitting had her right leg sitting atop his. They'd had always been relatively close, but even this was new to the both of them. Jasmine didn't know what exactly possessed her to do it. It just felt right.

Despite the very little stimulation, Garrett began to harden. He shifted uncomfortably beneath her before she noticed and said: