CHAPTER 1
Gut Feeling
Gut feeling.
That’s what I rely on these days. Not logic. Just the tight, twisting pull low in my stomach that refuses to be ignored. It was that same fucking gut that made me turn the car around tonight. I was in the back of an Uber, heading to the airport.
Three hours early. I told myself it was responsible. Mature. Efficient.
Really, I think I knew.
The driver had the heat blasting even though it wasn’t cold. The windows were slightly fogged. The city lights blurred past like smeared watercolor. We were already twenty five minutes in.
Five minutes closer to the airport.
Five minutes closer to New York.
To headquarters.
To pretend my life was normal.
My phone buzzed in my hand. A Slack notification from work. Andrew reminding everyone about the conference check-in time. I stared at it like it meant something more.
That’s when it started.
That tightening low in my stomach. The kind that crawls up your spine and whispers, Something’s wrong. I shifted in my seat. I tried to ignore it.
Told myself I was being dramatic. I was just tired. Emotional. Paranoid. But it wouldn’t go away.
It got louder.
He’s home, the voice said. He’s home right now.
My chest tightened. My palms went damp. “Actually…” My voice cracked. “Can you turn around?”
The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Ma’am?”
“I need to go back. Sorry. I’ll pay extra.”
He hesitated for a second, long enough for me to almost back out, then flipped on his signal. We had driven twenty five minutes away.
Twenty five minutes. And now we were driving twenty five minutes back. I watched the highway signs reverse themselves like time rewinding. My heart is pounding harder with every mile closer to home. I felt crazy. I felt like I was about to ruin my own peace for no reason at all. That slow, crawling unease. The sense that something was slightly… off.
Completely misaligned. Like a picture frame tilted a fraction too far to the left. I didn’t tell him I’m on my way back of course. I’d kissed him goodbye less than 30 minutes ago, and watched him smile that easy, harmless smile. Go have fun, he’d said.
By the time we pull back into my street, my hands are numb. The house looks the same. The porch light is on. The curtains drawn halfway likealways. The hydrangeas I keep forgetting to water drooping slightly to the right.
Nothing looks different.
And yet everything feels wrong.
I step out of the Uber and the air hits me, thick and heavy. The world feels quieter. Like someone turned the volume down. When I reach the front door, time slows.
Not metaphorically. Actually slows. The brass numbers stare back at me. 214. I stand there longer than I should, staring at them like they might rearrange themselves into something else. Something that makes sense. My heart is beating too fast for someone who is supposedly “just overthinking.” You’re being crazy, I tell myself.
Dramatic. Paranoid.
Just like that other time.