Everything is sprawled on the couch at this point and falling onto the floor. My heart is racing, skin prickling.
It’s not here.
“You want to get sushi?”
The bottom of my bag is empty. It’s gone. My USB is gone.
The only copy of my short story isgone.
“What the fuck?!”
“What?” Rosie yells back at me, walking in my direction. “You love sushi. What’s the issue?”
My breathing picks up the longer I stare at the bottom of my tote bag. Shallow, short, quick. My chest feels like it’s about to fall into itself. “Oh my gosh.”
When she reaches my side, she takes in the scene in front of us and grabs onto my arm, voice laced with concern. “Lil, what happened?”
“It’s gone.” Saying the words aloud makes the situation real. I’m shaking now, knees failing me. “My USB. It’s not in my bag. I lost it.”
Rosie grabs the bag herself and checks the inside, as if I hadn’t nearly teared it apart. The color drains from her face.
Worry has me grabbing onto my own elbows. Every sense is heightened in the worse way possible. I’m suffocating on the reality of the situation. On how screwed I am, less than twenty-four hours before it’s due.
“It’s gone.”
All that work, gone.
Rosie nods and starts to put my stuff back into its bag while I stand staring.
“Okay, so the physical USB might be gone. You don’t have a back-up?”
Our professor only accepts assignments via USB. I didn’t think there was any reason to save the file on an online system because he wouldn’t accept that method anyways. It’s a rarelapse of judgement, one that I would never normally make. But I did.
I want to punch myself in the face. It feels like I do.
“No.”
“Okay.”
She mindlessly shoves everything back into the tote, no organization or order to it. I can’t be bothered by the messiness, because I’m too busy being angry at myself.
My best friend grabs onto my shoulders and sits me down onto the couch. “Let’s work backwards. Where do you remember writing?”
I focus on the answer and try not to burst into angry tears. With my lifestyle in the last few weeks, there aren’t many options.
“Grant’s apartment and here.”
“That’s it?”
“That I remember, yeah.”
She claps her hands joyfully. “That’s great! There are only two options!”
“I don’t know where it is, though.”
“You don’t remember the last time you saw it?”
It doesn’t take long for me to rack my brain. For a moment, relief washes over me. I remember finishing it here, at my desk, with the anti-climactic ending.
