Prologue

Should I even bother getting out of bed?

               The alluring tendrils of sleep repeated their routine of binding me to my pillow, daring me to return to the dreamlands I had already forgotten, as they did every morning. I stared blankly up at the ceiling where daylight was already threatening to rob me of this choice. Most days I was able to force myself to break free from their hold and get up and get ready for work, but for some reason, doing so today seemed utterly pointless.

               Just two days ago, I managed to complete a big project I knew my boss only shifted onto me because he thought I was sure to fail, likely so he could save his own ass by blaming me for not being able to complete it by the time specified, which was yesterday morning. I was supposed to be the fall guy when the customer came around and started yelling. It wasn’t the first time my boss tried to screw me over like this, so I truly wasn’t making any assumptions here.

               However, against his already basement-level expectations, and against my own will, I pulled an all-nighter, drank an entire pot of coffee all by myself and managed to finish it not only on time, but the customer seemed to absolutely love it and rained compliments down on both me and the company.

               Great. Yay me.

               Baffled and visually impressed beyond words, my boss thumped me on the back hard enough to knock some of the sleepiness out of my eyes and handed me a raise. He wiped the sweat from his brow after he did this and walked off without another word. Considering the raise as his attempt to bribe me into silence for his misconduct, I pocketed it with one of the forced smiles I had gotten used to dolling out whenever the need arose and said nothing.

               Again, yay me.

               I was well aware that I was acting like a complete downer as I was praised by the customer and then my boss, but I couldn’t really help myself. That job, like everything else, was just too easy.

               Do not misunderstand, the all-nighter was rough. It was the work itself that was easy. It’s been like this since high school. I get handed work, do the work and usually complete it well before the teacher expected me to, often finishing homework assignments before the class was even over, then I’d get praised. Or in one instance, I ended up getting so far ahead in a computer science class that my teacher actually had to ask me for help on occasion.

               But the work was always so easy. No matter how high my education took me, from AP classes to college-level courses in high school to finally college itself, nothing ever really took me any effort.

               What was the point?

               Just showing up, participating as far as to listening to the teacher present their lesson plan for the day and doing my assignments was always enough for me to pull near perfect scores on my report card. All while watching as a fair few of my classmates struggled.

               I couldn’t understand it. These people weren’t stupid. This was the advanced class, right? And yet, my minimal effort somehow trounced their daily grind.

               This is not some boorish attempt at a bit of humble bragging. I truly hated it. I never deserved praise for any of this. Why praise what was easily accomplished? Why give me a gold star of approval for completing something on my half-assed efforts? Why praise me for doing what essentially came naturally? Each time smiles and applause came my way, the more I felt like I needed to avoid letting myself feel any sense of pride in my accomplishments.

               I just didn’t get it. Nor do I now. I felt the tiniest spark of happiness each time, but it always faded as soon as I realized that I didn’t do much to deserve it. And this was proven ten-fold when my lack of effort forced me to become the sort of lazy bum that took never trying to the peak of absurdity and realized all too late that this caused my life to stagnate and caused me to slowly lose most of the friendships that I cultivated in my school years.

               I was never the most popular kid in school, at least nobody outwardly hated me, but I had a good number of friends. Enough to show how sociable I actually was at the time. I was lying to myself when I said these relationships fractured due to us moving apart after graduation, us going to different schools or them just plain old moving on with their lives. It was supposed to be the same old story that happened to everyone once they graduated. You and your friends were just meant to drift apart. Only those truly close and loyal would bother to keep themselves around. And, in some ways, this was true.

               One by one, I watched from afar as my friends got married, had kids and showed off the new cars and homes they’d just bought for themselves. Meanwhile, I buried myself behind a computer monitor, wasting away playing whatever game took my fancy, instead of working to progress the stand-still my life had reached or to maintain what few relationships I had left.

               Constant fatigue became a quick excuse to ignore the wants and wishes of my friends. Once I even missed out on their wedding because I was “too tired,” though I was at least smart enough to throw together a much more plausible reason that got him to relent without actually hurting him. To having a friend tell me they no longer wanted anything to do with me anymore because I constantly turned down their attempts to be my friend and be with me in favor of the computer screen or a good nap.

               My life wasted away and my relationships dwindled to nothing until the point where I ended up getting irrationally excited whenever the random notifications my cell provider sent me pinged my phone, ending the otherwise dreary silence of my one-bedroom apartment. Thinking it was someone trying to reach out to me to ask what happened to me, to give me that chance to vent and apologize for abandoning them, only for me to realize the ping was just to notify me my bill was due.

               Prospects of romance also died out fairly quickly. Not that I really had any to begin with. Odd as it may seem, I was fully aware of my utter lack of self-confidence and still managed to do nothing about it, despite the total number of self-help videos I watched taking up enough memory to fill my hard drive. Because of this lacking, I never pursued any of the women I fancied, only to then watch them get snatched up before I could find that one moment where the situation and setting were absurdly perfect. Where I could approach them while they were alone to prevent some of the public humiliation past attempts had riddled me with. The mood would be perfect, we’d get left alone to chat for a while and the words I usually would keep bottled up with fall into the conversation as easy as thinking them and, the cherry on top would be that I’d somehow already be aware of their feelings for me and make that easy confession. It’d be easy, just like everything else. It’d be a perfection I always knew deep down would never come to me, even if I tried to make it happen.

               So, why get up and go through more of the same? More of the same minimalistic effort somehow doing well for me, but doing nothing with it to improve my life.

               I had money to spare, but not really enough to warrant moving out of this failed attempt at a nice apartment that I found myself secluded in night after night. I had the means to make more money or to at least get a better job, but no longer had the willpower. But I also had the great want for more. This endless cycle forced me to understand why some people chose to see a shrink to deal with their anxiety. There had to be a way to break it. The thought was tempting, as tempting as turning over and pretending the sun didn’t exist, but the anxiety and judgment I knew I’d face was harsh.

               “Meow…”

               With a thud that caused sleep’s hold on me to weaken, Lucy, a black cat with one large hazel eye and another that seemed just a bit of a lazy green dove onto my chest from her resting place on my desk, which was the keyboard I forgot to put away last night. She stared lazily into my eyes, her casually swishing tail urging me to get up, not for work, but to feed her.

               Supposing that I did at least have one reason to get up today, I drew in a breath, sighed hard enough to make Lucy’s pointed ears twitch, and finally obeyed the endless call of my alarm clock to hurry up and start my day.

               I swear, that cat purred the moment I sat up. Like she was satisfied with her hard work in doing so.

               I pulled myself out of bed, stretched and nearly fell right back into it before Lucy nuzzled her cheek against my hand. I patted her head and tended to her needs before grooming myself to at least look as presentable as I could, though I could do nothing for the bags under my eyes. They were likely a permanent fixture by now.

               Lucy sat on the dinner table, her face buried in her black and white spotted food bowl while I downed a quick breakfast. My choice for nourishment this morning was a protein bar, for no other reason than because I was fond of the flavor. My gym card was currently collecting dust somewhere in the inner recesses of my wallet, lost to time despite never being cancelled.

               I mindlessly pushed the bar into my mouth and chewed while I watched Lucy nibble away at her comparatively gourmet meal of what the labeled promised to be canned meat, but I had my doubts.  Regardless, her tail flicked around approvingly as she ate.

               Most people probably would have found it strange to let your pet sit and eat on the same table as you, but she didn’t give me much choice. Since the day I brought her home, this was her seat. Whenever I would try to put her food bowl on the floor, she would just stare at me with that lazy eye, her gaze telling me “Yea, I don’t think so, human. I am too refined a specimen to eat off the floor.” I didn’t mind, though, and sipped at my cup of coffee, occasionally scratching her head before I finished and grabbed my bag by the door.

               Letting gravity handle the walk downstairs, I stepped out into my apartment complex’s would-be garden, which consisted only of a field of grass, a set of playground equipment for the resident’s children to harass and a couple of trees for shade. The place was usually fairly lively, enough so to cause the need to turn the volume up on whatever game I was playing. But it was always quiet this time of morning. No children on the toys, no mother’s lounging about on the nearby benches watching their kids and nobody moving between the rooms, slamming doors hard enough for the sound to echo throughout the quad. The trees had long since wilted with the changing of the seasons.

               The only soles that seemed to be alive were me and the only one of my neighbors I was familiar with. Another typical aspect of my mornings. This neighbor was, if I could be overly simplistic due to lack of brainpower this early in the morning, very beautiful.

               As if on cue, she rounded the corner at the end of the street leading to a burger joint and jogged towards me the moment I stepped away from the apartments and onto the sidewalk. She wasn’t coming for me, I knew, but she ran down this path almost every morning and the sight of her was every bit as awakening as the caffeine still lingering on my tongue.

               Slender, but noticeably athletic. The only real curves on her belonged to what she kept hidden beneath the sports bra that should have kept her barely-tanned skin riddled with goosebumps this far into autumn. And to her leggings. A dangerous concept, those leggings. They managed to keep her perfectly covered from her waist down to her ankles, safe, but at the same time they told a story that I had to force myself not to read as she ran by.

               Mid-step, she saw me looking at her and offered up a casual, wave and a slight smile, then turned back to whatever song or book she was listening to on her headphones as she continued right past me down the sidewalk.

               That was it. That was the culmination of our interactions.

               For over a year now since I started this job, I’ve caught her making that effort to keep herself in peak form that I couldn’t be bothered to. She captivated me time and time again and yet, I’ve never once plucked up the courage to talk to her. Hell, I didn’t even know her name despite the fact that I could tell you that she wore her hair differently based on what day it was. Today happened to be ponytail day, a favorite of mine.

               I noticed she had no ring on her finger long ago and that she was always alone, but being unable to tell if her morning smiles were simply customary or genuine happiness at seeing a familiar face kept me in my place. What place that was, I didn’t know, but she wasn’t there with me.

               Slightly hunched over, I stuffed my earbuds into my ears and randomly selected a song off my phone and followed her, all while trying not to look like a complete stalker. Her jogging route just happened to pass the one I took to work. I internally beat myself up for once more freezing at the chance to talk to her and followed.

               The alluring jiggle in the seat of her leggings was so daring that it bordered on obscene. An on the rare occasion where she stopped at a crosswalk, almost as if to let me catch up to look, she’d do a few light stretches to jazz herself up to continue her run as she awaited the green signal to continue on. And in those moments, I realized what a true creep I must look like to the outsider, as I always found myself forced to tear my gaze away from her ass for fear of getting caught.

               I’d seen it countless times before, a man openly ogles a woman, she notices and then either brushes him off with a scoff or berates him for it. This girl seemed like she’d be the former, but that didn’t mean I was willing to take that blow. There was always that small, lingering hope that I would eventually man up and tell her how I felt, but I couldn’t let myself hear her reply, whatever it may be, start with “oh yea, you’re that guy that stared at my butt, huh?”

               For that reason alone, I kept my mouth shut. To be honest, I didn’t know many women. Refer to my reasons before as to why that is. I could accept rejection if I ever did manage to ask and get turned down. That would be fine. Hard, but fine. But if she came at me with that, I might just have to shut myself up in my apartment for good.

               Thankfully, today wasn’t one of those days. The light turned green as if waiting for her and I followed. Without the need to worry she might turn and see me during her stretches, I allowed myself the repeated glance at just how shapely her legs were, promising myself for the hundredth time that I would start actually making use of that gym membership I had.

               The light kept itself green, refusing to part us for the sake of the waiting traffic like a true friend. Urged by this small gesture of hope, I continued forward.

               As she did with me, she waved at another man as she passed him. Again, just a familiar face, I told myself. I’d seen her greet him a thousand times before. Her smile was no brighter for him than it was with me, but for some reason, it still hurt to see. Smiling wasn’t exactly a guarantee that someone was interested in you, proof of which lay in that she never stopped to talk to me either, so I always marked it off as a casual greeting and nothing more. She was just that sort of person. No harm done, assuming myself to even be in the position where I could be harmed by her politeness. But the thought that there could be more to it than that had been a constant worry of mine during these walks and today it was no better. In fact, it was worse.

               I didn’t want to see her ending up with him, or anyone but me.

               Now, now, calm down. I’m not about to go full serial killer on her or anything. I wasn’t going to give her the ultimatum of “be with me or die.” I just didn’t want to sit on the sidelines again as I saw her life move on and grow. Maybe somewhere down the line, I’d taken to her lack of a ring as meaning she was the same as me. Alone.

               I was alone. But if she ceased being alone, then we’d lose what little we had in common. A fair trade for her happiness, I suppose, but I couldn’t stand for it. If she settled down, we might lose these morning nothings. I’d lose the one smile that mattered to me. That one that came, not from unearned praise, but from… well, whatever her reason was.

               I couldn’t let that slide.

               For the first time in years, I felt that losing this chance for good would only end up hurting me more than outright rejection would. Even if I failed, I could at least move on. Stop hoping for something that would never come. Use that rejection as fuel for a bit of self-improvement for a “maybe next time.”

               And if not, that small chance that she’d say yes to a cup of coffee, even if she had to stop running for the morning to stop at the donut shop a little further down the road, even if I had to show up late to work so soon after getting a raise, it would be worth it.

               As foreign as the idea sounded, a bit of rejection might actually be just what I needed to get out of this slump. And if not, then I could at least prove to myself that my sense of courage was not as meager as I once thought.

               My heart pounded against my ribcage, momentarily making me think this light burst of exercise after years of a sedentary lifestyle had caused a heart attack, but it was actually just proof of an excitement that had been dead for years. Heart thumping and palms sweating profusely under the autumn chill in the air, I jumped into action and, mentally patting myself on my back for remembering to clean up properly this morning, I jogged after her. My chest burned, not from the effort it took to close the gap, but because of the anticipation. Regardless of what it was, I’d have my answer.

               Maybe Lucy somehow managed to spike my morning coffee with a bit of alcohol. How else had I come to this conclusion after years of not finding the effort worth it? I laughed at the thought.

               I closed in on her. With her jogging speed easily doubling my normal walking speed, she made it a fair distance from me in the few short minutes since I started my trek to work. But I was getting closer.

               And as I passed through the traffic light that made the puddles from last night’s rain glow bright green, the world went white.