Joe opened his mouth, feeling obligated to say something, anything. She waited. But no words came to him.

Finally she rolled her eyes in an annoyed way and then left his apartment. The door shut and Joe sighed.

He figured she would get back to her apartment and then go about her normal morning routine. She’d shower, change, get to work and then be a total firestorm as usual, her hangover not affecting her in the least. He really liked it—her aggressiveness, and how she could assert herself so effortlessly at work, even as an intern. He had always been calm and passive, even shy. So in their case, the old saying was true—that opposites attract. Sometimes quite heatedly.

His day would be much different than hers. He couldn’t handle work, for one. Right away he picked up his phone and he called in sick. After making the call, he rolled over, frustrated, wondering if anyone had ever called in sick to work for the primary reason that they were too horny to come in. He sighed, and while doing so he felt his phone buzz with an incoming text. He picked it up from the nightstand and saw it was from Danielle—she was texting him already. Of course she was. She was always very quick with her phone.

He read it cautiously.

what have you become shy in the morning?

Joe grimaced. As if in response, he felt his phone buzz again.

i could have helped you out you know… silly

This time he groaned out audibly, his voice pained.

A few minutes passed and he still didn’t move from bed. The effort to get up seemed unattainable.

His phone buzzed again.

He picked it up quickly, fully expecting to be tormented yet again by another of her witty texts, but it was not the case. Instead Joe felt his body seize when he read her message.

oh and who is Jennifer?

He told himself to calm down, that she’d probably just heard him call out her name while they’d slept. That kind of thing happened. But he knew it wasn’t that simple. It couldn’t be. Nothing would ever be simple again.

He knew this because of what he clutched in his hand. It was the real reason he couldn’t get out of bed. It was something he’d found lying on the sheet in the morning when he’d awoke in pain and misery from the hangover, while her phone had been buzzing with its intrusive vibrations. It was sitting there on the bed, as it had been in the dream, and he’d grasped onto it, mired in disbelief.

It was the glass ball Jennifer had carried. It was a perfect sphere, tinged a royal blue. She’d carried it in his dream, he’d taken it, and now it lay in his bed. It seemed to have followed him back from wherever he’d been.

From outside he heard the loud and ugly caw of a raven once more. He could even hear its talons scraping on the metal of the fire escape that was just outside his open window.