Chapter 10: Thank you
Derek was currently having his worst flare up of insomnia ever. And there was absolutely nothing he could do but keep his head down and brave the storm.
So many times he wanted to just give in. To go back to taking the sleeping pills that knocked him out and left him feeling like his brain was made of fluff, incapable of complex thought. But every night he hung on and made it through.
He swam until he could not, his body used to the aches that came with cutting through water every night. And when that was not enough, he sat in his rocking chair until a reasonable time to be out and about came. Moving amongst those who had recently awakened, faking like he too was suffering the effects of a good night's rest when he'd had no such thing.
Derek had just made it through another night in the chair and his body was feeling it. His entire being was aching, his mind unable to shut down, and his head was pounding because of all the sleep be was missing out on, Derek came into work feeling like an active volcano spewing hot lava everywhere.
By the time he made it to the office, he had made exactly three people cry.
The first one had been one of the IT guys. Derek had walked by to see the young woman struggling with a desktop, trying to lift it.
"If you cannot get that working by the end of the day. Don't come back tomorrow," She had nearly dropped the device, her lower lip trembling.
Next had come Lucas, his uncle's PA. Derek had just happened to cross paths with him and he'd said the first thing that came to mind.
"If you did not steal that shirt from a pre-schooler, then the diet you are on is not working," Seeing a grown man cry, was wrong on so many levels that Derek had instantly felt nauseous.