“That’s my work laptop,” I said, stepping into the room. The migraine made the edges of the scene shimmer. “You can’t use it.”
“Relax,” Vanessa said. “It’s not like we’re hacking into the Pentagon.”
One friend, holding a glass of red wine, shifted in her chair. The glass tipped.
Time slowed in the way it does when your brain knows something terrible is about to happen and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
The wine spilled, a dark red sheet cascading over the keyboard. It soaked into the keys, pooled in the cracks. The smell hit the air instantly, sharp and sweet.
The screen flickered. Once. Twice. Then it went black.
The friend giggled, a breathy sound like she’d knocked over water instead of my work.
“Oops,” she said. “My bad.”
I stared at the laptop, the ruined keyboard, the wine dripping off the edge onto the desk. For a moment I couldn’t move. My migraine roared, and beneath it, a different pain rose, hot and fierce.
