Tomorrow, she decided, she’d buy two alarm clocks. But first, she needed a nap. Right here. Right now.
Her stomach dropped. The presentation she’d stayed up until 2 a.m. finishing was still on her kitchen table, right next to her dead phone.
She sat down, opened her laptop, and the blue screen of death stared back at her. Video Title- Jill-s bad day
Jill put her head on her desk and, for a long, quiet moment, didn’t move. Then she laughed—a broken, tired little laugh—because what else was there to do?
She plugged it in, threw on the first clothes her hands touched—a wrinkled blouse and mismatched socks—and ran to the kitchen. The coffee maker gurgled angrily, then spat lukewarm brown water onto the counter instead of into the pot. She drank it anyway, straight from the carafe, grimacing. Tomorrow, she decided, she’d buy two alarm clocks
Outside, the sky had the bruised look of an incoming storm. Of course it did.
By the time she got to work—late, sweaty, and smelling faintly of burnt coffee—her boss was waiting by her desk with a smile that wasn’t a smile. Right now
The alarm didn’t go off. Or maybe it did, and Jill had slapped it in her sleep. Either way, she woke up forty minutes late, her phone dead on the nightstand.