“Easy, buddy,” I murmur, reaching out to run my fingers gently over the top of his head.
His stiff posture eases as I scratch behind his ears, lazy circles that always seem to melt the tension right out of him. His eyes flutter half shut again, and he huffs softly through his nose before dropping his head back onto the blanket.
“Good boy,” I whisper, barely loud enough to register in the quiet morning air.
Once his breathing evens out and his eyes close fully again, I lean over the edge of the bed and grab the book that startled him in the first place. The glossy black cover catches the faint morning light filtering through the blinds, giving it a cold, metallic gleam. Sometime in the middle of reading, I must have dozed off. It would explain the awkward position I woke up in and the ache in both my back and my neck.
Sighing, I sit back, thumbing through the dog-eared pages before tossing it onto my nightstand, where it lands with a softthunkamong a pile of half-used notebooks, pens missing their caps, granola bar wrappers, and a cup of tea from yesterday that I never finished.
I reach for my phone, which is partially buried beneath the crumpled edge of my pillow, and tap the screen with a sluggish thumb. The display flares to life, way too bright for my tired eyes. I squint at the numbers.
6:36 a.m.
Ugh. That awful in-between time—too late to justify falling back asleep, too early to face the day with anything resembling grace. I sigh through my nose and glance at the flood of unread notifications lighting up the top of the screen. Texts, emails, calendar reminders. All of it waiting to drag me back into reality.
I rub the heel of my palm against my eyes, chasing away the last wisps of sleep clinging to the edges of my mind. My phone slips from my hand and lands on the nightstand with a softclack—less a surrender and more a momentary pause—just a breath before the rush.
For a few more seconds, I stay still, listening. The world outside is already stirring—muffled conversations drifting from cracked windows, engines rumbling to life, and the soft patter of leftover monsoon rain needling the glass. It’s peaceful. Icould stay buried under the covers a little longer, listening to the remnants of the yearly monsoon and let the warmth wrap around me like a shield—but not today.
Max stirs behind me, letting out a soft snore as he burrows deeper into the covers, completely unbothered by the world starting to spin around us. I glance over my shoulder and smile faintly. Must be nice.
I sit there for a moment, elbows resting on my knees, letting the cool air pull me fully into the present. The nerves are still there, tugging at the edges of my stomach, but they’re wrapped in something steadier now. Something closer to purpose.
It would be so easy to crawl back under the covers, to let myself hide in the warmth for just a little longer. But I’ve waited too long for this day—this year. And I’m not going to miss a second of it.
Time to move.
With a soft groan, I grab the textbook off the nightstand and shuffle over to my desk, dragging my feet across the cold floor. The surface is a disaster zone—stray highlighters and uncapped pens scattered like confetti, balled-up Post-its with half-baked ideas, and a lineup of empty soda cans standing like a row of tiny, metallic tombstones.
My laptop is still sitting where I left it, propped open and waiting. I swipe the trackpad, and the screen glows to life—Ghostface stares back at me, blade raised, like he’s daring me to survive another semester. It’s dramatic, but fitting. He is my little tribute to the part of me that finds solace in horror, blood-splattered stories, and fictional psychopaths who probably need prison time.
I stack my laptop on top of my textbooks, my hand smoothing over the mosaic of peeling Dutch Bros stickers, dark romance quotes, and true crime decals that toe the line between quirky and concerning.
It’s a strange, chaotic little collection—but it’s mine. A reflection of the pieces that make me who I am: caffeine-driven, criminally curious, and entirely too invested in fictional morally gray (teetering toward morally black) men with knives.
I slide everything into the main pocket of my book bag, zip it closed, and rest my hands on top, fingers tapping a quiet rhythm as if my nerves are trying to find their beat. After a second, I take a breath and straighten up, rolling my shoulders back.
Today’s going to be good. I can feel it.
I step away from the desk and circle around it, heading for the door. My hand finds the knob—I twist, pull, and yank it open. I barely have time to take a single step before Max launches off the bed like a missile. His paws hammer the hardwood, nails clicking frantically as he barrels past me in a blur of black fur.
“Max!” I call after him, but he’s already halfway down the hall.
The rapidclick-click-clickof his nails against the hardwood echoes through the apartment, each step full of urgency. He doesn’t hesitate or glance back—just makes a beeline for the front door, his nose pressed hard into the seam. He paws at the bottom corner, claws scratching against the base like he’s trying to dig his way through.
The second I step into the living room, my eyes land on the chaos—and I meanchaos. It looks like a garbage can exploded in the middle of the apartment. Empty cans of Vanilla Coke and Mike’s Hard Lemonade are scattered across the coffee table like confetti from a party we forgot to clean up. A Domino’s box sits wide open, a single sad, half-eaten slice of pepperoni still inside, surrounded by a pile of discarded crusts like some kind of greasy pizza graveyard.
Tessa’s signature move. Shealwaysleaves the crusts, and it drives me insane. I actually like the crust (love it, even), butI’d already inhaled four slices last night and figured five would officially launch me into food coma territory. Still, seeing them just sitting there, untouched, feels personal.
But it’s the popcorn that takes the prize. There are pieceseverywhere. In the cushions of our dark gray couch, under the table, even in the cone of the damn floor lamp. I told her to clean it up, especially since she’s the one who flinched so hard during the first jump scare that she launched the entire bowl, scattering pieces like the timer ran out in the game of Perfection. But I should’ve known better. She probably ignored me on purpose. Her passive-aggressive revenge for forcing her to watchFriday the 13thPart VI: Jason Liveswith me. Her version of a fuck you without saying a word.
Classic Tessa.
She’s my complete opposite in every way, which makes it a minor miracle that we haven’t killed each other. It could be that we’ve been friends since we were kids and her family took me in (which makes us more like sisters at this point), so we were already accustomed to each other’s quirks, but still. She’s bright and bubbly, sunshine in pastel floral Vans, always humming while she is painting or sketching something with her headphones in. Happy-go-lucky to a fault. She can’t evenlookat fake blood without gagging, and yet somehow ended up best friends with a girl whose bookshelves are filled with serial killer profiles and forensic textbooks.
I’m the quiet one. The introvert. The girl who finds comfort in silence and studies murder for fun. Tessa can’t go five minutes without background noise—and yet, she’s the person who knows me best.
Don’t ask me how it works. It just does.
