Days came and went without care. Without- Anything. Food was ordered, and food was delivered. Items were requested, delivered, and sat in their bags. The laptop sat unopened. Stef slept. There were thoughts, but they crossed like butterflies in the wind. Nothing seemed to catch. Nothing seemed to work. There had been the want to do something when she’d arrived. Music played from her phone as she peeked out from her pillow fort. There was the want to just go to sleep and never wake up again. To pretend that the next few weeks she had in Applegate Court were all she had – with all the good and bad…

Morning had snuck in and slunk away by the time she woke. A call down to the front desk had someone running out for sandwiches and soft drink – and as she was waiting for those to arrive, she downed three cups of coffee, which helped to somewhat rouse her to an almost functional state. After food arrived, she sat on the overstuffed couch, the complimentary Applegate Court notepad and pen sitting on her knee, the blank page taunting her inability to do anything. She had…a month, it wasn’t quite that, but it made sense to think of it as a month. A month to control her crazy, to stop…

It took twenty minutes to pack. Open a drawer, throw underwear into her much-graffitied Louis Vuitton overnight bag. Open another drawer, throw pants and T-shirts into the matching weekend bag. Tie the arms of her one nice jacket through the arms of the weekend bag, phone, charger, headphones. The Hobbit bundle of cheese lay on her bed, nothing but crumbs left. Her room – one of the few private rooms that her house had – would be safe while she was gone. And if it wasn’t, there was nothing so personal that it would hurt to lose. She was the weird, drunk loser, but her name protected her from a…