The door snicked shut quietly behind me, so quiet that the consistent drip, drip of water pooling around my feet was the louder of the two. Lucie, currently a puffed-up gray blob, glared up at me from her hiding spot underneath the coffee table where her scratch pad and enclosed bed were located, as if I were personally responsible for the thunderstorm crashing overhead.


    A light turned on to my left, revealing Leo standing in the hallway. He looked disheveled in a pair of stained basketball shorts and rumpled old t-shirt.


    “Go back to sleep,” I told him, trying to shoo him back to bed. It was late, nearing eleven, and he had work in the morning.


    “What time is it?” he asked instead, walking through the kitchen with its white quartz countertops that seemed to glow slightly with every flash of lightning, coming to a stop before me at the front door. “Why are you wet?”


    A vicious clap of thunder sounded just then, and I pointed up.


    It hadn’t started raining until I’d gotten into the rideshare, but it had evolved into a torrential downpour by the time the car had stopped. The driver had stopped half a block down the road from the entrance to the complex. I’d been too nervous to ask her to drive another five hundred feet down the road, so had gotten out and ran for it.


    He considered that for a moment, fighting the drowsiness that still held him half-under, then nodded and turned back around. He shuffled slowly back towards his room, the light automatically turning back off as he disappeared into his room at the end.


    I shucked off my shoes and managed to peel off my shirt before Leo emerged again, this time holding a towel in each hand. He glanced at me in my semi-undressed state, shook his head, and closed most of the distance between us before tossing me one of the towels.


    “You know, I don’t care if you drip water on the floor. As long as you don’t soak any of the rugs, obviously.”


    He wouldn’t look at me, offering what little privacy he felt he owed me, as he dropped the other towel to the floor and started cleaning up my mess, the action going against what he just claimed about water on the floor.


    “I can do that, you know,” I offered as I dried my arms first, legs second. When I was no longer dripping, I wrung my hair out before wrapping the towel around my middle. The shorts dropped next, hitting the ground with a thwack.


    “This storm is keeping me up anyways.”


    I grimaced. “Headache?”


    He nodded slowly. “Yeah. You too?”


    “Not anymore. But…” He looked to me as I bent over to pick up my clothes from the floor and waited for me to elaborate. “It was the weirdest thing. I thought I was going to have an episode.”


    “But you didn’t,” he answered matter-of-factly, since I was still standing and clearly not currently in major pain. “Probably just the storm.”


    “That’s the thing though. Maybe the storm triggered it. But it was definitely the start of an episode. I got the same feelings like I usually do. And, here.” I held out my arm to him. “You can check my screen and see how bad I was doing. And then, all of a sudden…I was fine.”


    Leo frowned, starting to look more awake. He took my arm and quickly navigated through it, pulling up everything from the last hour, running some sort of report, and coming up with a summary.


    “How’d you do that?” I wondered, bringing my arm close to my face as though inspecting it would give me answers.


    “Callie…” he trailed off, eyes widening as he assessed the screen. “How quickly did you think to take your meds? Because this was very sudden, and you would’ve had to take them within the first minute or two once your symptoms started to still be standing right now.”


    “I, uh…may have forgotten to bring them with me.”


    He gave me a blank look. “I don’t understand.”


    I looked towards the coffee table and its gremlin underneath, pointing to the bottle of pills that still sat atop.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    “Huh,” he huffed, clearly perplexed. I stifled a laugh; it wasn’t often that Leo was confused by something. He always seemed to have the answers. It could be a bit annoying, honestly.


    “I don’t know what happened. One second I’m having trouble seeing,  hands, head splitting open, and the next I’m perfectly fine.”


    He straightened and scratched the back of his head. “It must have been something else, then. There’s no way that could’ve happened. And even with your meds, you wouldn’t be this okay.” He gestured to me standing, having a normal conversation, two of the things that were usually beyond me after an episode.


    I flinched back in shock. “You don’t believe me?”


    “What you described is impossible.”


    “But it happened,” I enunciated slowly.


    He shook his head at me. “There has to be another explanation.”


    I crossed my arms, tucking the towel under my armpits, and snapped, “Fine. Believe what you want. I know what I felt. You can be wrong for all I care.”


    He was likely right, and logically I knew that. But I also knew my body and hated being made to doubt myself. I’d sleep on it and reassess things in the morning. It would probably be a good idea to make myself an appointment to get things checked out, just in case there was something else going on.


    Leo grabbed my arm as I turned away to retreat to my room. I tried shaking him off, but he held firm, stepping with me when I yanked on my arm. I refused to turn and face him as he started pleading with me.


    “Callie, that’s not—”


    “Just go to bed, Leo.”


    “Can we just—”


    “Let go of me,” I ground out, patience gone.


    “Will you wait a—”


    let go!” I spun around, yanking my arm simultaneously and willing him to just give me a little bit of fucking space.


    Leo went sprawling, landing a good five feet away from me.


    “How did you…?” he trailed off, looking up at me from the floor.


    “You must have missed a spot and slipped,” I determined. Still hurt and annoyed, I stalked to my room, leaving him to pick himself up off the floor.


    The door slammed satisfyingly behind me, the thick manufactured wood-like material supporting my weight as I slunk to the floor. The towel came loose, slipping onto the floor and reminding me that I was still quite damp.


    Scratching at the door indicated my cat was on the other side, and I let her in quickly. I refused to allow myself to look out to see if Leo was still there or not. Lucie strutted the considerable length of the room and over to my bed that sat across from the curtained wall of windows. She tucked herself underneath the bed frame, where no less than three cat beds waited for her. Soft light flashed around the edges of the lilac curtains, reminding me of the strange sparks I’d seen twice now.


    I crossed the massive suite that I’d only recently learned was the master, complete with its own walk-in closet, sitting area that I converted to my own personal library, and full bathroom with a separate tub and shower. It was heaven.I set my phone on its charger on my nightstand, definitely out of battery now. I’d have to remember to text Alex later to keep my promise.


    Perpendicular to the enclosed fireplace that served as the boundary between my library and bedroom was the doorway that led to the bathroom and closet. I pattered towards it, grateful that I’d stopped creating small puddles. The recessed nightlights in the wall that were set at ankle height turned on as I walked past and into the gleaming marble bathroom. My cheap season-themed hand towels looked out of place against the white and grays.


    Gathering a calming-scented candle, fluffy towel, bath salts, robe, and cup of water, I arranged everything in its usual place and started the tub. The steaming water looked irresistible, and I decided not to wait until it finished filling before stripping the rest of the way and sinking in. The warmth of the water eased the tension still in my joints that I hadn’t been aware I carried. I closed my eyes and leaned back, determined to forget the rest of the world even existed.


    Well after the water had run cold I finally felt relaxed. A lot of adrenaline had been running through my system and I knew the crash was coming. Every LaShoul’s episode of mine ended that way; a deep, dreamless sleep that not even an alarm could wake me from. Though, with the odd events of the night, would I even react the same way as I always had?


    I considered the oddness of tonight’s events as I toweled myself off and started drying my hair. It had definitely felt like the start of an attack. But what had triggered it? Leo had mentioned developing some modifications for the screens to search for external stimuli, and maybe that was to blame? Something in the subway that set me off? As soon as I made it back outside, I’d felt almost perfectly fine again. I’d need to bring up those mods again to Leo, see where he was at with them. If I fully explained everything about tonight, maybe he’d agree that I was able to stop the attack because I left whatever was causing it.


    But what would affect me so strongly, so suddenly, but not anyone else in that subway? Or was my LaShoul’s progressing faster than I was led to believe by doctors?


    The thought made me shiver.


    willed myself to let it go for tonight, ingingnightly. Ewas beginning to , and all I wanted was the luxuriously soft sheets of my bed. But, of course, I’d left my bed an utter disaster. I was not a calm sleeper, and half my sheets and the comforter were hanging off the far side.


    Lucie grumbled at me from underneath the bed as I fought the several blankets into some semblance of order. Remembering my promise, I grabbed my phone off the charger on the nightstand to reply to  waiting message. He had jokingly wondered if I had died. I assured him that only my phone had and thanked him again for the date before sleep claimed me.