Sleeping With The CEO
Chapter 64: Like Fishing

Chapter 64: Like Fishing

There was a cold blooded cruelty to the one wonderful night of sleep that Derek had been able to get. In the past, he had always known that the only way for him to go to bed and be able to get some sleep, was through the use of medication. The medication had always left him feeling out of sorts, barely able to string two sentences together, let alone have complex thoughts.

That was how he had seen things before. No sleep meant that he could think, even if his head, eyes and every other part of his body hurt. Sleep meant swallowing down pills, and hoping that no one asked him what one plus one was. It also meant contending with feeling disconnected from the rest of the world.

Those were the trials and tribulations that he knew, and he had made peace with them. Then along came that night, and it tore apart all that Derek thought he knew about the world.

He could sleep without the aid of sleeping pills. Honest to goodness sleep that left his body feeling refreshed and his mind working at light speed.

But then, like a bolt of lightning that only struck once and did not return. The sleep was gone, and no matter how much Derek tried to get some shut eye, there was nothing there.

A sleepless Monday gave way to a sleepless Tuesday. His body adamantly telling him that the little reprieve he had gotten when he managed to sleep was well and truly over. By Wednesday, all of his aches had returned full force and no matter what he tried to do he could not seem to get into the rhythm that had allowed him to sleep the first time around.

Thursday night found him too disappointed in his inability to sleep to even go swimming. He simply walked the manor grounds until it was almost time for the staff to get up, and only then did he return, his legs aching, but sleep still very far from him.

On Friday night, he did not swim as well, but he did go down to the pool, and he spent his time there staring up at the ceiling. He had gone through with his idea of getting it painted, and so that night, he was staring at the milky way in all its glory. When he had come in, he had not bothered to turn on the lights, so the glow in the dark paint was doing its work.

On Friday night, Derek swam and swam and swam.

Saturday night was a blur. He was attending some sort of fundraiser. It lasted until well into the early hours of the morning, giving Derek an excuse to stay and mingle rather than just going home and being unable to sleep.

But on Sunday night there was no escaping it. Derek could not sleep and that was a problem. To clear his mind, he went for a swim, and as he swam, he thought. And a possible solution came to him in the form of a memory...

As a child, opportunities to spend time with his father, one on one, just the two of them, were rare.

On one such ocassion, his father had taken Derek to a secluded area where the family had a cabin( the place was much too big, and too well equipped with all of the high end amenities, to be a proper cabin, but they still called it that). Anyways, one day, when his mother had booked herself into a spa for the weekend, Derek’s father had cleared his schedule and taken his eight year old son to the cabin.

On the property, there had been a lake. And Derek had inherited his love of water from his father, though while Derek loved it because it allowed him to swim. His old man had loved the precious liquid because it had allowed him to carryout his favourite hobby...fishing.

And that day, he had chosen to share the beauty of it with Derek.

Needless to say...Derek had not liked fishing. Sitting out on the wooden pier, their chairs side by side, they had cast their lines, and waited, and waited, and waited...

Twenty minutes in his father’s line had gone tight, an indication that there was something on the end of it. Sure enough, with a whole lot of excited cheering from Derek, the older man had reeled in his catch. The two of them admiring it. His father had said that it was too small, so a few seconds later, the fish had been released back into the lake.

All excited, Derek had gone back to his chair, ready to catch his own fish. At the time he had been convinced that it would be as big as a mountain. Knees bouncing, his whole body vibrating on the spot, Derek had fixed his eyes on the water, and waited.

During his hour long wait, his dad had caught a total of eight fish. And Derek, who had been convinced that his first catch would be the size of a mountain, had not even had something the size of a mosquito nibble at his hook.

Feeling dejected he had turned to his father.

"Don’t they like me? How come they won’t bite my hook?" He had asked, his lower lip wobbling.

"Derek, it is not about them liking you or not, it is all about the approach," His father had told him, his green eyes alight with silent laughter.

"Watch me, look at all of the things that I am doing differently from you, and try to copy them," And that was exactly what Derek had done. He had copied his father’s breathing, and relaxed into the chair. Then he had stopped moving all together, a monumental feat for an eight year old.

Even then it had still taken him another twenty minutes to nab his one and only catch of the day.

The smile on his father’s face had made it all worth it...Derek had never gone fishing again after that, staying still for too long just was not in him.

But from that outing, Derek had learned a valuable lesson. And as he remained unable to sleep on Sunday night. He decided that he would try it out. Back then, he had looked at all the things that his father was doing right in order to catch the fish.

Now he would apply that principle to himself.

What had he done the night that he had fallen asleep?