As told by Eli McBride

I don’t sleep much. Never did, I think. As a kid, when my mother still lived with us, we shared a room, and she used to have night terrors. She’d start whining, and then talking in her sleep, and would end up screaming bloody murder until my grandparents rushed in to wake her up.

As much as those episodes terrified me, what I hated the most was how scared Nan and Gramps got every time it happened, and how exhausted they looked the next morning. So I started to keep watch in the dark. As soon as the whining and talking began, I’d tip-toe to her bed and roll her over, shake her, or wake her up altogether.

She hated it and pushed me away every time, but I didn’t care. She could get as pissy and grumpy as she wanted. I didn’t mind staying awake, as long as I could protect my grandparents from it all.

The point of this angsty anecdote is threefold: I am a very light sleeper, I am physically unable to sleep more than four hours per night, and I am definitely NOT an early bird.

My dear Natei managed to mess with all three at once, every time he stayed over.

He snored like a bear with a twenty-year smoking addiction. And the worst of all, it wasn’t even that kind of rhythmic snoring that you can eventually tune out. It was entirely random and uneven. Every time I dozed off, one of his sudden snorts would shake me up and leave me wide awake with a hint of tachycardia. 

Unlike me, who would be wide awake until at least 2 or 3 am, he’d start dozing off around eleven and be sound asleep by twelve, no matter the context or location. After the fourth time we were mercilessly killed in the game by the first boss because my battle partner nodded off mid-fight, I dragged him to my room, got the couch ready, and pushed him on it. By the time Dalí followed us up the stairs and jumped on him, he was long gone. He didn’t even notice the weight of the 40-pound dog on his chest.

That left me alone with a good couple of hours of perfectly sound lucidity ahead of me. Normal people scroll down some social app or play a game on their phones, read a book, or just stay there wide awake recalling the mistakes they made during the last decade.

But not me. I would choose the Creepy Side and watch Nate sleep. I couldn’t help it.

I know, I know what you’re thinking. I’ve thought so too, and so did my therapist. I really shouldn’t, but it’s a little secret pleasure of mine.

Oh dear, I’ve just made it worse, haven’t I? No, not that kind of pleasure, God, no. Nothing sexual about it.

It’s just… he looks at ease when he sleeps, you know? If you could just glimpse the sheer tension of constant worry on him as I do, you’d understand. Nate’s never relaxed, not even when he forgets himself for a while. He is always uneasy, perpetually anxious. It makes me always uneasy and perpetually anxious too, especially at night. I would always think about him alone in his house, under his father’s roof, and worry. Is he safe? Is he having a panic attack? Is he getting claustrophobic in the dark?

But when he slept over at my place, I got to see him relaxed, safe, at ease, even if it was due to unconsciousness. It was a relief for me. A selfish one, but still valid.

But every blessing has its dark side, and my blessing had a knack for early mornings.

He’d be up at six sharp even on Sundays. While I was barely on my third hour of sleep, he had already showered and loudly announced he’d be making pancakes for breakfast, and orange juice, and maybe some scrambled eggs, because I only ate crap and I needed some actual protein in my body for my dance class.

As much as I loved him, I truly harbored murderous feelings towards Morning Nathan. 

However, the lure of sharing an intimate breakfast with him was too strong for me to resist, and I’d invariably throw myself out of bed, shower, get on my dancing uniform, and go to him and his darn pancakes.

I managed to crawl my way downstairs. Nate and the dog were well into their second breakfast.

“Morning, sunshine.”

“Oh, shut up.”

I slouched on the table as he filled a plate with a serving of scrambled eggs generous enough to feed a family of oviraptors.

“Don’t,” I begged, alarmed. “Just coffee is fine.”

He looked down on me with the utmost disapproval.

“I’m not aiding and abetting your self-destructive dietary habits, Eli. Eat your damn pancakes.”

He put a plate before me, right next to the bowl of scrambled eggs.

He had drawn smiley faces with maple syrup on the pancakes.

I surrendered and proceeded to forcefully stuff my face to his heart’s content. My body is chronically skinny, but I’m sure I’d end up nurturing a respectable gut if I ever lived with Natei. He looked so satisfied and proud that I even asked for seconds.

I was so full after that decadent breakfast that walking the fifteen blocks to Streatham’s Sports Centre felt like medieval torture. I wanted to drive, but the weather was lovely, and Natei was eager to take a stroll.

I’m so weak to him it’s shameful. On we went, side by side on the road downtown, while he whistled a little tune so cheerful it almost melted my darkness. Almost. I was still tired and still grumpy. It happens every morning. I always need a good couple of hours before I am able to become a fully functional human. My coworkers steer clear from me and my multiple cups of black coffee at least until our 11 o’clock break.

However, Natei was completely immune to my foul mood. He’d gleefully ignore it.

His cousin, on the other hand, found great joy in crushing it by force.

The second Alejo saw us enter the studio, he unleashed his unstoppable sunny energy on us. He greeted his 6 feet beast of a cousin like the 6.2 feet more muscular beast he himself was: he picked Nate up and made him swirl on the dancefloor without a sweat. 

As for me, he knew better than to attempt anything remotely similar to physical contact. He instead gravitated around me, just out of reach, but close enough to annoy the hell out of me.

“Would you stop being so damn energetic this early in the morning?” I begged, beginning to stretch.

“Always the brightest ray of sunshine,” he retorted with a grin. “You look like shit, Eli. What the hell did you two do last night?”

“We played video games until late, that’s all.”

He clicked his tongue with a bored expression.

“Come on, Lex. Leave him alone,” said Nate, nudging him on the ribs.

“Sorry, sorry. I just got excited for a minute. I thought your Player 2 had finally pressed Start.”

I groaned and sat on the floor to finish my last stretching exercises. And to hide my face. I could feel my cheeks burning like all hell. Lex had teased us like that since we were kids, but somehow now it stung more. Probably because I was now finally single, and for once I didn’t count on the ghost of a boyfriend to chaperone the jokes into harmless banter.

Nate jumped in immediately to shut him up, which led to one of their usual bickering matches in foul Argentine Spanish, in which they tried to insult each other using the most creative combination of curse words their colorful first language had to offer.

“Okay, Player 2, enough!” he roared, pushing Nate towards the side benches. “You go there, be quiet, and hit play when I tell you.”

Natei flipped him with a huge smile and did as he was told.

“You ready, Eli?” Lex asked, helping me up. “The competition is biting our ass. We need to polish this bitch and make it fabulous asap.”

The aforementioned bitch in need of polishing was, in fact, our choreography.

You see, Lex is my dance teacher. He has been for a good couple of years now. I was reluctant to have him teach me for many reasons at first. To begin with, he’s my friend. This guy wore a suit to my graduation, saw me cry over a string of shitty boyfriends, clogged my bathroom after eating two XL burgers with cheddar-bacon fries, and held my hair when I got sick after drinking too much. I wasn’t sure how our relationship would blend with the entirely different student-teacher dynamics.

Secondly, he’s a titan. I mean it. He’s a 6.2 feet giant that works out like a maniac and has waist-long hair. Add a ragged loincloth and he’d be ready to slay a lion with his bare hands and claim his throne as king of the beasts. He’s not exactly what comes to mind when you picture a ballet teacher, particularly to a feeble 5.1 feet student.

However, I hadn’t been able to click with any of my previous instructors. I knew the basics, but I never made much progress because I just couldn’t memorize the more complex steps. I got nervous under pressure and my mind went blank. I joined class after class and saw my classmates get assigned to more advanced lessons while I got stuck with the newcomers.

After one particularly nasty teacher berated me because I wouldn’t gain muscle after submitting myself to a spartan diet he gave me, I was ready to drop ballet for good.

Lex found me crying in one of the bathrooms of the Sports Center.