It took me about ten minutes to write all this down, and when I finished, I looked at my phone. 6:08. I was so nervous that I suddenly wondered if I’d gotten the date or time wrong. But I had confirmed with Jeanie and Marina by text earlier in the day, I reminded myself. Had I gotten it wrong? Had I made a typo and set the date for the next day? I checked my phone just in case. Yup. Right time and day.

I wondered where they were. The restaurant was starting to fill up, and I wasn’t going to be able to hold the table for much longer. In fact, just then a woman gestured at the table and said, “Are you using all these seats?”

I shrugged. “I think so. Well, three of them. You can have the fourth?”

She shook her head. “No, I need two. Thanks.” And she wandered away. I felt embarrassed. 6:13. Should I call them? My imagination started going wild. Were they standing me up? Were we really even friends? Was this a… prank? I craned my head all around to see if they might be here, watching me and laughing, but no.

Stop, Allie. You’re being paranoid, I told myself. I looked at my phone. 6:15. Should I just call my dad to come get me now? My stomach clenched in embarrassment. As I gripped my phone and stared at it, it suddenly rang.

“Allie! Oh my gosh, I’m so glad I reached you! It’s Jeanie. Listen.…” She was all out of breath and talking fast. “Marina’s mom had a fender bender on her way here—”

I gasped. “Oh no! Is everyone okay?”

“Yes. It’s fine, and it wasn’t her fault, and no one was hurt, thank goodness. But we realized she was going to be there for a long time waiting to do the police report. We were finally able to leave, so now we’re walking… and we’re about… Marina, how much farther?”

“Six blocks,” came the muffled reply in the background.

“We’re six blocks away. We’re so sorry we’re late. We couldn’t call sooner because there was all this drama. Anyway, we’ll be there soon. Okay? You probably thought we stood you up! I’m so sorry!”

“Oh, haha, well…,” I said. “See you soon.” We hung up.

I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said out loud to myself. “Phew.”

I was embarrassed now that I’d been so paranoid. I’d even imagined they were spying on me to watch me squirm. That was ridiculous! I really needed to calm down when it came to friends. (My mind flashed back to the sixteen personalities diagnosis, where it said that the Logistician saw dependency on others as a weakness! They often unreasonably blamed themselves for things that weren’t their fault!)