go figure

      She curls up again, the rain's delicate tapping on her window growing all the more impatient. She doesn't need to open her eyes to see the glowing red numbers screaming at her, their stern admonishment almost as loud in its silence as the blaring alarm to come.
      The comforter failed to deliver on its namesake, no consolation in its smothering embrace, her bare legs kicking it off for the thirtieth time. Curling around the pillow with a lover's embrace, she can feel the icy fingers of night tracing patterns on her shoulders, unwanted advances whose alternative comes with sweat-soaked sheets.
      Somewhere, the cat was sleeping contentedly, curled-up and probably purring beside the window. She knows it, and she knows that the cat knows that she knows it, and grows increasingly frustrated at the chain of knowledge now floating in her head where the dreams should be, or at very least the other side of dawn. Somewhere, possibly beside the cat, lie her dreams, warm and floating peacefully above the ground, mingling with warm, soft fur and the softer, gentler cousin to the rumbling thunder in the distance.
      An itch on her cheek, as her locks betray her yet again. The thought of shaving her head someday tickles her for a moment, teasing a smile from her lips using imagined mirrors. As if the sleeve of ink, the piercings, and the scar across her back didn't do enough for her image, to suddenly have a shaved head besides . . . it would almost make up for the tiny frame that never seemed to grow past middle school, or the high-pitched voice that further betrayed her secret nature, that which transmogrified "hardcore" into "spunky" and "strange" into "quirky."
      That beneath her pillow, she clutches a one-eyed teddy bear, is irrelevant. She could still be a badass in the dreams, even if said dreams were off cozying-up to the ball of fur elsewhere.
      The silly little image distracts her from the comforter's advance, finding itself wrapped around her tiny frame once more, a dependent relationship troubling to all sentient parties involved. The thought of her dreams, manifesting themselves as little puffs of fur and warmth, playfully nuzzling into the cat's own, gently pulls at the corners of her mouth and eyelids, little unseen feet walking toward one-another.
      One last glance at the alarm clock's consternation yields only the faintest hint of red, before her mind's eye remains the only one open. The nagging suspicion of a girl standing triumphant over shattered war machines, their unblinking red eyes flickering to darkness, fades quietly away, as frustrations slip quietly from beneath the covers, creeping unceremoniously toward the window before making a much-anticipated exit under cover of rain.
      Peace descends upon the formerly restless, a blanket offering no unwanted heat but the warmth of comfort.
      A perfect opportunity for the cat, dreams so nestled in his fur, to use her head as a pillow.