The year my sister got lucky (and I got exiled to the boondocks, became a fashion disaster, fell flat on my face in front of a cute boy) and I maybe sort-of betrayed her secret.

I’m an insomniac. Any sweet, deep slumbers I’ve had over the course of my fourteen could probably be counted on one hand. Still, I manage okay during the day – school, dance class, dinner, homework. Most people wouldn’t guess my little secret.

My sister, Michaela, is the only one who really knows.

“Michaela?” I whisper from my bed. My covers are kicked down around my ankles, my curls are piled up on top of my head, and I’m fanning myself with one hand to cool off.

Michaela lets out a long, weary sigh. Her big-sister sigh. It’s the sound she makes when I try to talk to her at night, when I can’t find the keys to let us into our building, or when I’m spacing out on the street and my foot misses the curb. Michaela never trips on the sidewalk. She’s three years older than I am, and sometimes the gap feels as vast as the green swath of Central Park. Other times, it’s as small as the space between out beds.

“Are you awake?” I persist, propping myself up on one elbow. I know the answer. For the past hour, I’ve been listening to her flip from side to side. This behavior, coming from Michaela, is completely weird. My sister is the exact opposite: a champion sleeper. She can crash as soon as her head touches a soft surface – or, sometimes, not even. Once, after a late dance class, I watched her doze off while we were riding home on the subway, standing squished between hordes of strangers.

Her talent is awe-inspiring.

“Katie, come on.” Michaela’s voice – soft and light, even when she’s annoyed – is muffled by the pillow over her head. “It’s after midnight.”

It’s also thick, soupy August, and the apartment’s air-conditioning broke today, so we’ve got the windows pushed open as high as they can go. Sirens and taxi horns and some hoarse girl yelling at her friend to meet her on the corner of East 5th Street and 2nd float inside, but it isn’t the noise that’s keeping me up. I’m as used to the babble outside as I am to the stripes of light that passing cars paint on my ceiling. I remember when I was little, sitting in my parents’ bedroom and watching my dad write, with his Frank Sinatra CD blasting in the background, and hearing the line about New York being “a city that doesn’t sleep.” I’d hugged my knees to my chest and felt a sudden, tugging connection to my hometown. That feeling’s stayed with me ever since.