Resonant

Chapter 1

Zale

The sound of my phone ringing had me burrowing deeper into my bed. My hands automatically pulled the pillow over my head and pressed down. It didn't do much to block out the noise, and it felt like I was smothering myself, so I groaned and accepted defeat.

"Hello?" I answered groggily.

"Hi, Zale! You didn't tell me it was your birthday!" Betty said, sounding genuinely delighted. She was the office manager at the private school for the supernatural I worked at, and I was pretty sure literally everything on the planet made her happy.

I should have just let the pillow smother me.

"Yeah, I don't really like to celebrate birthdays," I said. Lies. I always used to love birthdays. This year, though, celebrating felt wrong. I didn't have that kind of joy left inside me. I was a carved-out husk of the man I used to be. All that was left was hollowness and despair.

"Oh, I get that. I've been claiming to be thirty years old for decades now," Betty said laughingly. Interesting. That put her age higher than I would have guessed. "Anyway, you can stop by and pick up this delivery anytime before five. That's when I'm closing the office for the day."

"Okay. Thanks, Betty," I said.

"No problem! Take care!"

She clicked off, and I rolled over and let sleep pull me under again.

--

It was sometime in the afternoon when my phone ringing woke me up again. I could tell from the warm light that filtered through the blinds. It was going to be impossible to fall asleep again with so much light in the room, I realized.

"Yeah?" I answered ungraciously.

"Sorry, Zale, did I catch you at a bad time?" Betty asked.

Why couldn't the woman leave me to sleep in peace? "It's fine," I said, even though it really wasn't.

"Oh, okay. Well, I just wanted to remind you to pick up this delivery. It's almost five and it really would be a shame if it got left in the office all night."

"I'll come get it," I said reluctantly. My plans for the day were already ruined. Might as well make Betty happy. And maybe I could pick up some black-out curtains while I was at it. It had been on my to-do list for a while now, but I never seemed quite able to muster the energy to make it happen.

"Alright! See you soon!"

Betty hung up the phone and I lay back down while I searched listlessly for the strength to stand. Good thing my suite in the faculty building was right near the office, because by the time I had stood up and put on a shirt, I only had two minutes before the office was due to close.

Betty was already shutting down her computer and switching off lights when I walked in, and she lit up when she saw me. "I'm so glad you made it!"

What kind of life did this woman have that she got so excited about other people's packages? And was there anything I could do to experience that kind of interest in the world?

But then Betty went to the refrigerator in the adjoining breakroom and pulled out a vase with an explosion of flowers emerging from it and I understood. It wasn't a package at all, and a flower delivery was good fodder for the gossip mill.

Betty was eager and clearly hoping for some kind of reaction from me when she handed them to me. "Thank you," I said, and I high-tailed it out of the office before she could question me.

Betty was well-meaning, but she was also exhausting.

Then again, I couldn't think of much that wasn't exhausting these days.