I’d had the weirdest fucking dream last night and couldn’t shake it. When I woke up with a start this morning, I would’ve sworn someone other than Tina was in the dark bedroom with me, but nope not a soul. All I could hear was Tina’s weird whistly snore, and not a thing was out of place. I even checked under my bed, but no one was there. I wasn’t sure what the fuck I would’ve done if someone had been.

When I went for my run, a guy was jogging on the second trail. He had a hood up, and all I could think was that he was there to kill me. I mean, he had track pants on, and it was a cold morning, but no, my mind had to tell me he was a serial killer. So, I ended up tripping over my own damn feet and landing face-first on the trail. Now I was sporting an inch-long gash on my chin that, luckily, didn’t need stitches.

Oh, but the fun didn’t stop there. My messed-up morning made me late for class, and of course, it had to be my mother’s class. She called me out in front of everyone. Why? Because she decided that today of all days, she wanted to prove that I was not above her wrath to the rest of my classmates.

Now here I was at work, and my phone hadn’t stopped dinging with fucking Peter’s incessant badgering. He kept whining about how I needed to come over after my shift, how I shouldn’t be working at the café, and how things needed to stay normal—blah, blah, blah. Not to mention my screen saver had suddenly changed to an image of the Joker from Batman. I had no memory of changing it, which only added to my creeped-out feeling that someone had been in my room.

“What is going on, Sugar? That is the third coffee in a row you got wrong,” Jorge asked, and I wanted to cry and didn’t even know why. I was off my game and an emotional, nervous wreck.

“I’m not sure. I can’t seem to focus. I’m really sorry,” I said as he fixed my latest screw-up. The line had finally died down, and I leaned against the counter and crossed my arms. “I guess I’m really making a mess of things.”

Jorge smiled at the customer as he handed over the hot drink before looking at me. “In the words of the great Swifty Legend, you need to shake it off. Tell me what you think is going on?”

I sighed, and as if he knew I was thinking about him, my phone dinged again. I was tempted to throw it across the room. “For starters, my boyfriend. I need to dump him, but it’s complicated.”

“Is he the one that’s blowing up your phone?”