Sunday, December 11th

92.)

Insomnia is a real bitch. It's a lot more than just "having trouble falling asleep". It doesn't matter how tired I am, how comfortable I am, or how at peace I am. I can be enveloped in the softest bed, in the softest blankets, and in the arms of a cute girl in a diaper. And yet...

After a while, I rolled over onto my back. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes again.

I had a few tricks. The first was meditation, or whatever the at-home made-up equivalent would be called. Deep breaths, counting, focusing on my senses. The blankets on me. The weight of Blossom's arm. The sounds of her breath, soft and even. This was just to keep my mind distracted.

It didn't work.

My next trick was what I called "reorganizing". Rather than focus on myself, I focused on the things around me. With my eyes closed, I imagined where I was in the room. Blossom was on my left. The headboard behind me. The foot of the bed. Then the walls. The closet. The door. The window. The furniture. I mapped out the room with spatial reasoning and mental reconstruction. Then, once that was done, I started to move things. Turn the bed 90 degrees. Move the dresser from one side of the room to the other. What would it look like if the whole room was flipped? This was to keep my mind distracted, but it also tired out my brain.

It didn't work.

My last trick was what I called "associations". Part of the reason I can't sleep in the first place is because one thought or worry or anxiety would tumble into another. No school this week, but school in less than a month. Picked my classes, but what if I didn't do them right? What if I mixed up my dates on the syllabus? What if one of the classes didn't count toward my degree? I didn't even know what my degree was going to be. What did I want to do with my life? Nothing made me happy, other than writing. Oh, and there was so much writing left to do...

When I played associations, I used that cascading thought pattern to my advantage. Rather than obsess about one thing until a more pressing thing came up, I encouraged bouncing to literally any topic. No school this week, but school in less than a month. A month is 30 days, but sometimes 31, and sometimes 28. 28 is a nice number because it adds up to 10 but is divisible by 7. Divisible rhymes with invisible. What would life be like if I had invisible powers? I would sneak into the locker rooms like in anime. No I wouldn't, but the thought already came to me.

It didn't work.

The worst part of insomnia was at the end of it, when I got so upset that I couldn't fall asleep that everything feels claustrophobic and itchy. I shrugged Blossom's arm off me, then I kicked off the covers. I was trying to do it carefully, so I didn't wake her up. Then she rolled over, so her back was facing me. That was about the time I couldn't sit still anymore.

I sat up in bed and slung my legs over the edge. I reached for my phone. I'd been laying there for almost two hours. With a deep sigh, I put on my glasses and climbed out of bed. I wondered how much baking soda we had left.

Blossom had hoped that when she woke up the next morning, that Amy would still be in bed next to her. This hope was, perhaps realistically, not a particularly high one. The fact was that she'd had a pretty heavy discussion with Amy before going to sleep, and to be honest she might have been more surprised if she woke up and Amy was still laying next to her, peacefully sleeping. The tall girl came to consciousness the way that waves come to the shore; slowly and surely, and then with a sense of immediacy. She sat up in the bed and rubbed her eyes, already yawning, and pivoted to step out onto the floor. She stretched and yawned again, and then made her way out of the bedroom to look for Amy.

I made pretzels. A lot of pretzels. I chose pretzels because the dough needed twenty minutes to proof, which would slow me down a little, and because they allowed for a lot of creativity. The shape of pretzels wasn't necessary in any way to make pretzels, so I made spirals and stars and twists. Of course, I made a lot of normal pretzels too. The idea was that I might get bored or tire myself out after a few hours and go back to bed, but it didn't work out that way.

When Blossom came downstairs, I noticed. I quickly ran my hands under the kitchen faucet and dried them on my pajama pants. I'd have to wash my clothes anyway.

"Morning," I said, a little bit embarrassed.

"Ohh, Pretzels?"

Blossom didn't take her usual place on the stool right away; instead she entered the kitchen and wrapped her arms around Amy, giving her a firm hug. Then, with a smile, she went around and plopped down on the stool.

"You know all the way to a girl's heart, huh cupcake? Can I have one?"

The hug was a surprise. I was frozen in place for a moment, and when she pulled away it left flour on her pajamas. I felt a little guilty. By the time she sat down, I had come to my senses.

"Sorry," I said, passing Blossom a tray of star-shaped soft pretzels. They were dusted with an egg wash and salt. "I couldn't fall asleep..."

"Well, you seem less anxious," Blossom said, picking up a pretzel and pulling it apart.

"Pretzels take forever to make. It has a twenty-minute proof time and a fifteen-minute bake time. Plus you have to shape them. It isn't as routine as a lot of the stuff I make, so I don't get lost in it."

Downsides: my hands were sore and red and I had dark pink lines on my arms where I was rubbing my skin with my nails. Pretzels didn't keep me busy enough.

"Do we have any mustard?" Blossom queried, after taking her first bite and making a series of appreciative noises as she chewed and swallowed. "It's delicious. I just usually have my pretzels with mustard. One of those brownies-and-milk things, I think!"

Although the idea of drinking mustard like milk wasn't a great thought. Blossom was trying to make the morning feel normal, like it was okay for Amy to wake up and work on baking all night. Removing the shame seemed a good place to start.

"I have some seeded mustard?" That was usually better with pretzels anyway, right? I wasn't a big mustard fan. I went to the fridge and spooned out some of the mustard into a little sauce bowl.

"I usually eat pretzels with frosting," I admitted. I whipped some up while I was waiting for the dough to proof. I put the bowl of mustard and the little mixing bowl of frosting in front of Blossom. You know, for options.

"I don't think I've ever tried it that way. But you have pretty good taste, so I'll give it a whirl."

Blossom carefully tore a piece of her pretzel and dipped it in the frosting because that seemed to be the vibe - and she hadn't used a piece she'd bitten from so it was okay - and then plopped it in her mouth. As she chewed, her face went through a full spectrum of expressions and thoughts; like someone drinking kombucha for the first time, and when she swallowed it she'd come to her conclusion.

"I like that! It's like a salted cookie."

"Yeah, it's something I used to do when I was younger. I guess it stuck with me. Probably why I'm fat."

My egg timer went off - I literally had a small timer I kept in my backpack - and I went to get the second-to-last batch of pretzels out of the oven. I still had one more tray ready to go.

"You know that those mean things you say about yourself, even if you think they're not harmful, they are. We have to talk with our pledges every single year about that, because high school makes people super self-critical and that can lead to it being super normalized to say hurtful things about yourself, which also leads to fatalism and all that junk."

Blossom took a bite of her pretzel with mustard this time.

"Sure, but I am fat. Shouldn't I be normalizing that?" I said plainly, switching the trays of pretzels. I used the edge of a rag instead of an oven mitt - it probably looked haphazardly to Blossom. To be fair, I had burned my fingers more times than I could count.

"Normalizing is fine, but you were saying it this time to be mean to yourself~" Blossom stated as a matter of fact, and pointed at Amy with a piece of torn-off-pretzel. "You know a lot about writing, you know a lot about baking, you know a lot about cute Halloween movies, but when it comes to girls with low self-esteem? I've heard every line there is."

"Mm..." I would have argued with her, but she was right. The only reason I said that was to hurt myself. So I sighed and leaned forward on the counter. "Fine. You win this one."

"Good girl." Blossom finished her pretzel and tugged a length of paper towel off the roll to wipe her hands; she'd gotten butter and salt all over her fingertips and that wouldn't do. "How're you feeling?"

"Exhausted," I admitted. But she probably meant mentally. "I'm fine... I honestly just couldn't sleep. I don't know how you do it so easily."

"It's not always so easy - sometimes when I'm stressed before an exam or something big, I'll just get really high beforehand and pass out. But you also know me by now. I sleep early, I don't do anything in bed but sleep, and when I wake up I get out of bed pretty immediately. It's this whole like…"

Blossom made a big round gesture with her hands as she stood up, preparing to go wash her hands at the sink.

"It's sleep hygiene; if you take good care of yourself and your sleep hygiene, you have a better chance of sleeping good."

"Yeah, I've tried that. But at home, the only place I can really write Academy Works is in my room. So my bed is also a thinking place for me." Even at the beach house, sometimes I wrote in my room. Not so much anymore though.

Blossom started to wash her hands in the kitchen faucet and looked at Amy with a smile on her face. "Have you tried getting high before bed?"

"Well, I've never been high before. So no, I can't say I have." From what I knew of marijuana - which was admittedly very little - it didn't make you sleepy so much as it made you giggly. "Plus, pot isn't legal in New Hampshire."

"But it's legal in Maine," Blossom added, wagging her finger.

And the beach house was in Maine. Another point for Blossom.

"You should try it, honestly. It's good to help you sleep. And if you get the right type, the stoner babies on Twitter say it's good for feeling Little too." Blossom had a pretty open mind when it came to substances; she figured if you only lived the one time, you might as well try everything once. Or twice.

"I dunno..." I wasn't technically even twenty-one, which I think was the required legal age for pot. I'd had alcohol before, but it didn't last very long. "It seems like I'm trivializing all the effort Straight Edged Amanda has put in until this point."

"And has Straight Edged Amanda led you to a point in your life that you're happy with? Because if she has, then you should continue listening to her. But if she hasn't… then maybe a second opinion from Cupcake Amy might not be the worst idea."

"Cupcake Amy?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "I don't know if I should be trusting someone with such a stupid name." But Blossom had a point I guess... "I'm not against drinking or smoking or whatever; I've just never done it. It's easy to not do things you've never done."

"I'll pack some gummies for next weekend," Blossom said.

"That reminds me," I said. "When are we leaving? You don't have tutoring tonight."

"Whenever you'd like, cupcake. We could go out for dinner somewhere nice, and head home late? But I think unless my favorite baby girl gets herself a nap today, you're gonna be way too tired for that."

"I can stay up a lot longer than you think," I said. "One time I was up for four days, because of school exams."

"You need a nap," Blossom said again, a little more sternly. "Or we can go home early."

Jeeze, it was hard to argue when she acted like that. So I sighed.

"Fine. After the pretzels are done."

"And you'll be diapered for your nap."

Blossom wanted to assert that she would put Amy in a diaper for her nap, but after last night she sought to be just a little more cautious with her assertions.

She was really pushing her luck, wasn't she? A diaper for my nap sounded nice actually, but there were impracticalities too. If I was going to take a stand, it would be now.

"There's no point wasting one of those nice diapers on a short nap," I dismissed. "Especially if we're leaving when I wake up."

"Then we'll use a pink one," Blossom said simply. "You don't like those ones anyway, right?"

"It's still a waste." But Blossom wasn't wrong; I always chose the white diapers these days because they fit better than the pink ones. I'd need to get pink diapers in Medium next time.

"We might as well use them; the quicker we use them, the sooner we can buy more diapers that we like. And we have a PO Box now, so our only limiting thing is the size of the steamer chest." This was an easy assertion for Blossom to make, because she had a lot of money.

"You're really not being efficient about this," I sighed.

Blossom was starting to learn that emotions could override logic. Maybe Amanda Pearson had a lot to complain about, but Little Amy would be easier to sway. So Blossom stepped closer to Amy and put one hand on her cheek, guiding her eyes up so she could look into them.

"I think that's a bold claim from a girl who's too little to know how to count, don't you?"

Count...? I shrugged her hand off me before she could feel my cheeks getting warm. "I can count just fine," I said plainly, half-stepping away from Blossom.

"Then you can count on being diapered for your nap, cupcake. You sleep better when you're diapered anyway, so I don't know why you're making a fuss."

Blossom didn't know if that was true or not, but she slept pretty well when she was padded. She was extrapolating. But if Amy kept rebuffing her, Blossom wouldn't push the issue - if the girl wasn't having fun, there was no reason to force it.

"I do not," I lied. Honestly, I knew I slept better in them. It felt like every second laying down with my head on the pillow wasn't a total waste, because I got to enjoy the comfort of feeling Little. Maybe it wasn't the worst idea, if we were talking practically... if it improved my sleep...

"You do so. No more fussing, or I'll show you how well I can spank."

Blossom had spanked a few people in her time. She was a switch and sometimes it felt good to beat someone's ass for a while.

I opened my mouth, but the threat of a spanking was actually pretty powerful. I'd never been spanked. Literally ever. Even my mom didn't spank me when I was a kid. It was one of those things I liked reading about in stories, but... well, I'd probably squish Blossom if she tried to put me over her lap anyway.

"This is dumb," I said, which - when translated from Brat to English - meant "okay, you win."

Blossom smiled in victorious satisfaction.

"I can't promise any pretzels will be left when you wake up, because I'll be doing big girl stuff while you sleep and that big girl stuff," a term which here meant reading, "happens to go pretty well with pretzels~"

That would be a pretty miraculous feat if she was serious; there were a lot of pretzels.