Deadly Dreamer - Book One ✔️

Chapter 8

I've drawn a blank.

Not a single good excuse is coming to mind.

I'll just have to use work as my excuse for now. She won't be convinced but maybe at some point when I better understand what the hell is going on with me, I'll tell her. Right now though I don't even have an explanation for what's up with me.

"Nothing's wrong. I mean, I guess I'm a bit distracted with work at the moment, I'm swamped but managing...just. Nothing to worry about but the usual stuff. I'll be right." I grab my stirrer and twirl my drink around innocently, looking at anything but her. I look up quickly and smile a half smile for extra measure.

Internally I'm hoping she doesn't push me for more, because I've got nothing better to offer up.

She's still watching me. Studying my actions, my facial expressions.

She just sits there and looks right in my eyes and tries to see deeper, into my soul, where all the confusion and guilt and contorted glee lies in wait.

Alyssa then sits back and relaxes her demeanour.

"Fine, whatever, I know that's a giant load of bullshit and I will get to the bottom of this, we're definitely not finished here." She points at me menacingly then she gives me her look that spells out 'don't fuck with me' and I know that she's serious, she's not gonna let this go.

Then she completely changes the mood and puts us back to a good place, where we can talk about nothing for hours and get caught up giggling like school girls.

We sit there catching up for a good hour and a half before I realise I've taken a much longer break from work than I'm allowed to take, it's a good thing the boss is out for the day otherwise he would have my head served on a shiny silver platter for my tardiness.

I cut Alyssa off mid-sentence.

"Hey....I hate to cut in, but my break was over more than a half hour ago and I've still got a lot of work to do before the day is over, so I've gotta get back to it."

"Ok, ok." She throws her arms in the air in a dramatic gesture of defeat.
The more dramatic the better, in Alyssa's mind.

"But don't forget Saturday. I'll pick you up at 10 - you better be ready." She's says and I can tell that the 'you better be ready' has more than one meaning to it.

I give her a quick hug goodbye and I grimace, forgetting about the pain in my sides and holding in the grunt that almost escapes before pulling back away from her.

"I'll see you Saturday!" I call back as I dash out of the cafe and back to work which is luckily only a 5 minute walk back.

*************************************

I arrive back at the office a few minutes later to find it in disarray.

Every single person is trying to rush around and send off paperwork for approvals or frantically tapping away at their keyboards before the deadline for certain cases is closed.

I'm lucky that my priority case has been adjourned for the mean time but this doesn't mean I have the time to lope around and get distracted thinking about my whacked out dramas. I've got a whole stack of cases yet to be looked over so that's my main focus for the day.

Some days I think I could have my own reality show with the amount of drama I get dealt daily. I could call it 'A day in the Life of Danica Roskam - messed up beyond repair.' Oh, what a story I could tell.

I know that sounds so very dramatic, but some days it feels like the world is playing a really cruel prank on me. Especially now with this dream thing going on, I just don't know what to think about anything anymore.