This isn't weird.

Get It Together!

Twentyside Tavern was bustling. The lights were bright—so, so bright—and the air was vibrating with the din of two dozen tightly packed tables. Some tables were covered with cards, some with colorful boards, dice, or miniature figurines; many had all of the above. The patrons huddled around them varied between tragically hip and tragically nerdy, but they all had one thing in common—they were so fucking loud.

Normally, Ben wouldn't have noticed. He didn't mind crowds or noise as a general rule, and a solid year of regular game nights had made the scene entirely ordinary to him. But on this night, Ben was suddenly aware of the intensity of the noise and light, because he saw it on her face.

She was the only person sitting alone at the bar. That was why he noticed her—this wasn't the sort of place people came to alone. Not on purpose, anyway. The only place in town where a person could purchase both beer and twenty-sided dice, the Tavern's clientele generally showed up with their adventuring parties already in tow. He watched her from the corner of his eye as he ordered his drink, searching for some sign that she was waiting for a friend, or a date, but there was something about her body language that he could describe only as dire. Trying to be subtle, he shifted his position to put her directly in his line of sight and pretended to study a Legend of Zelda poster on the far wall. His tact was unnecessary. It was obvious that she wasn't the slightest bit aware of him as he looked her over.

She was petite, with two tawny French braids and a smattering of freckles across her nose; a textbook illustration of wholesome, girl-next-door pretty, but he was less concerned with her attractiveness than he was by the fact that she looked abjectly terrified. Her posture was impossibly rigid, her face alarmingly pale, and her eyes unblinking as she stared down at an unmoving configuration of cards on the bar in front of her. Her hands were clenched around her phone so tightly her knuckles had turned white, as if it were a protective talisman that would teleport her away if she could only squeeze it hard enough.

The bartender handed him his beer, and Ben hesitated a moment before taking a few steps toward the lone woman. His fingers brushed against her shoulder as he leaned in to ask, "Hey there, are you—are you okay?"

She gasped for air as if he had just ripped a strip of duct tape from her mouth and swiveled toward him. Her phone clattered against the bar as she grabbed his forearm with both hands and whispered, "No! Oh my god, no. Please help me." The redness of her eyes made her irises look unnaturally green.

Startled by her sudden animation, Ben nearly dropped his beer. He sat it down on the bar, steadied himself, and tried very hard to look reassuring. "Woah, hey—it's okay, you're okay. Take a breath. What's going on?"

"Igotstoodup," she blurted, all the words pouring out at once. "Igotstoodup, and it's like I'm like so into her but she's so flakey but she promised tonight and she wanted to take edibles and play a game together and and and I took mine right before she was supposed to get here and and I don't even smoke weed okay I haven't in years and I have no tolerance and I didn't want to do it in public but she said it would be fun and I've never been here before and I don't know anyone and I was sitting alone at that table and and and that blonde waitress was like 'Umm are you really going to take up that whole table by yourself all night?' and like like everyone in the fucking world was looking at me like ohmygod look at that pathetic girl without any friends and and so I tried to play it cool and act like I was just you know coming to like chill out and play solitaire by myself because I'm like cool and independent and I can go out by myself and its no big deal right but I don't know how to play solitaire and I tried to Google instructions but I don't remember how to Google and it's so loud and bright and oh my god I think I'm actually for real dying and that waitress is just like gonna be so super annoyed that my dead body is taking up a bar stool."