Calvin sat in a sleepy diner, looking and feeling like a zombie. He doubted whether those few restless hours of sleep in the grimy hotel room, had done anything to stave off the chest cold he had begun to develop sleeping on the bench. He continued to draw attention to himself when he hacked out phlegm before washing it back down with coffee. He suspected the coffee was weak, but wasn’t able to taste it anyway his nose was so stuffed up.

He looked down at his bowl of oatmeal, and felt a level of revulsion that made him gag. Everything felt a bit off. Nothing surprising considering the past twenty-four hours. What did give him pause was the feeling that he had merely become aware of things feeling off, but once he had noticed it, it was like his vision had cleared, and he realized he that this feeling wasn’t foreign to him. He often felt off kilter.

His phone buzzed on the table next to him, and he ignored it. It still reminded him of the glimmer of hope he had felt when he had seen a missed call from his mother. He didn’t want to worry her, but as his life had slowly been twisted out of shape, he was desperate for something concrete to ground him. That voicemail she had left hardly helped. His mother had jokingly scolded him for not saying goodbye before he left for the airport, even though he had made no mention of heading to the airport. Maybe he had imagined a slight tension that contradicted the words she was saying, but he couldn’t be sure.

This odd sensation he felt continued to grow more concrete. He had felt anxiety before, and this was like a distant cousin. He was unsure what he should do, not from a lack of ideas, but by having clear options that he simply couldn’t decide between. It was a heavy sensation that expanded until it had cracked his skull and surrounded him in his booth.

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He should fly back home. There was no particular reason why he had chosen to stay here for as long as he did. Now that his parents thought that he had left for good, and he had significantly downgraded his lodgings, what was holding him here? Calvin couldn’t answer that definitively, but continued to simply feel as if it was too early to leave.

He sat there feeling if his future teetering on its axis. Things would either improve, or he would look back on this moment as what preceded his descent to rock bottom. The middle ground had fallen away.

He gave up on his oatmeal, paid the check, and left. His backpack was with him, having doubted the security of the hotel room. As he walked along the city streets, he felt like an outlier. Every person moved with purpose, knowing where they were going, and at what time they needed to be there. He had been like that only a short time ago. Now he felt a like a pariah.

He should go back home. Get back to his job, let it seep into his life until he similarly was back on a schedule. It would be nice to fit in. Wouldn’t it? His steps were slower, and he felt people brush past him as rivers surges around rocks. His life had always been the river. He had spent years making it so.

It wasn’t an insignificant part of himself that felt like he couldn’t leave. Not yet. Feeling as if he were stepping closer to the a burning building, he began to walk. Only a small part of him knew where he was headed. The one thing he knew for sure was that it involved Clara.