She was just typing a text to her older sister when Toni’s face popped up on her phone screen.

“Hello?” Deja croaked, her voice dry and hoarse from disuse.

“You sound terrible,” Toni said.

“I just woke up.”

“Oh, look at you resting! I’m proud of you.”

“Shut up,” Deja said and rolled her eyes.

“Anyway, bitch, I’m back in town!”

Deja’s face lit up. “Yay! Welcome back to nowhere.”

Toni sighed. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. When was the last time you left your apartment?”

Deja’s brain was still moving at the speed of molasses, but that wasn’t why she took a handful of uncomfortable seconds before she answered Toni’s question. She stalled because she knew Toni was about to light into her when she did. “I’m not…” Deja started and then turned to the kitchen with a suddenly dry mouth. “I can’t remember, actually.”

“Jesus, Deja,” Toni breathed.

“I’ve been writing and resting and cleaning. You should have seen how messy my apartment was after finals.”

“Girl, you need fresh air and some time away from work. You shouldn’t be holed up in your apartment all day, every day, it’s not healthy. That’s how you get burned out.”

“I’ve been burnt out; it can’t get any worse.”

“Yes,” Toni said, “it can. You have no idea how many of my friends have bounced from job to job because they can’t produce, or they just leave academia itself. This is no joke, and your department does not care if they burn you out. We’ve been over this.”

They had, and Deja knew Toni was right, but it was one thing to hear her say the words and nod along with them; it was an entirely different thing for her to figure out new strategies. She was convinced that the only way to accomplish that was to become a new person altogether, and she was too embarrassed to admit to Toni that she thought of herself as a lost cause.

“I know,” she whispered into her phone. She pulled open her fridge and grabbed the water pitcher from the top shelf. She poured a large glass of water and gulped half of it down in a few swallows.

Toni sighed again, and Deja forced herself to drink the rest of her glass of water while she waited.

“Okay, look,” Toni said after a few seconds. Her voice sounded softer, a forced chipper that made Deja feel worse somehow. “I just got back, and I’m jetlagged. But I’m about to put a load of laundry in the washing machine, power nap the fuck out of my afternoon, and then you and I are going to happy hour at Burger Barn.”

Deja groaned, “I hate Burger Barn.”