But that doesn’t mean I’m not jumping half an inch off the sheets every time my apartment building creaks. And though there have been a lot of renovations in the last five years, this building is old. It likes for its opinions to be heard. Every time there’s even the slightest hint of humidity in the air, the building groans and complains and I’m left tossing and turning.

Last night, though? Last night was different. I got a couple hours of sleep after my unexpected texting conversation with Mystery Woman, AKA JD. Now, it’s 5:15 and for the first time in forever, I snoozed right past 4:27. I sit up, scratch the back of my head, and eye my phone on the nightstand. There’s no way she messaged me while I was asleep, right?

I nudge my phone, wake it up, but nothing but the block-numbered time looks back at me. No messages.

It would have been crazy to assume that there’d be a message from her. Why would she voluntarily reach out to the random guy who’d been pestering her at odd hours of the night? Frankly, it’s a miracle she talked to me as long as she did.

My thumb is momentarily possessed by a ghost and hits the replay button on her last message to me. Her voice echoes out of my phone.

“Good night.”

That’s a nice voice right there. There’s a low, husky quality to it, like she’s halfway between a dream and reality. And so familiar. Where have I heard that voice before? I know this woman. I just don’t know how I know this woman.

Why, you ask? How, you ask? How is it possible that I could feel that I almost certainly know this person but I just can’t place her?

Well, I have a very . . . unique brain. One that I’ve come to love in my adult years. Now that I know how to manage my life, the way my brain works is actually a real positive. But there are definitely things I’ve learned to avoid for my own sanity. And the question of who this JD person really is is the kind of thing that will plop itself down in the middle of my frontal lobe and start paying rent.

I’m the type of person who has to have child locks on my internet so that I can only access work-related sites during the workday. I didn’t trust myself to upgrade from a flip phone for years because I knew that if I had a movie theater, video game console, a camera, and an internet connection in my pocket at all times, I would immediately sink my career.