I pulled my arms back up underneath me, braced them against the floor and pushed my body forward again, flopping down on my chest with a bit of a gasp. I did it again and again, and in this way I managed to get inside my bedroom and move myself over to the closet door.
Of course, due to my need for order, the door to my closet was closed.
I looked up at the handle and sighed between pants. I rolled myself over onto my back and pushed myself up until I was sitting down with my back against the wall next to the door. I reached up and touched the bottom of the handle with the tips of my fingers. I strained, tilted my body a bit to the side, and twisted the knob enough to open it.
My side felt like it was on fire from the stretching, but at least the door was opened up a crack. I pushed, and it opened the rest of the way. I looked high up to the shelf where my laptop was stored, knowing immediately that there was no way I could reach that high.
Was I ever, ever going to catch a break?
Break.
That’s what I was going to have to do—break something to get it to fall, and then hope to God the damn thing would still work. At least I knew through my own diligence that the battery would be fully charged.
I looked around and saw my heavy winter coat dangling from a hanger. I scooted to where I could grab it, pulled it down—breaking the hanger in the process—and positioned it over my head. I was starting to get dizzy and feel a little nauseated as my heart continued to pound and my hands continued to shake. I knew I wasn’t going to last much longer. Taking yet another deep breath, I closed my eyes, tightened the coat around my head, and slammed my shoulder against the set of shelves.
Some of my books fell along with a stack of school folders and one of those boxes of sixty-four crayons with the little sharpener in the back. No laptop, though I could see it had shifted a bit with the impact. I slammed into the shelves again, raining more crap down on my head, but at least the coat blocked anything from hitting me too hard.
I peeked out from under the coat and saw the laptop sticking about a third of the way off the shelf. One more hit ought to take care of it. I covered my head again, tried to ignore the pounding in my chest, braced myself and smashed into the shelves a third time. The laptop fell, landing straight on my knee, which hurt like a bitch. I really didn’t care, though. I got it!
I dropped down to the floor and lay there as my fingers worked the switch on the side, opened it, and turned it on.
I could have sworn it took about seven and a half million years for the damn thing to boot up.
“Be online, be online, be online,” I chanted as the little “Starting Windows” message disappeared, and the laptop displayed my Manuel Neuer desktop theme. I
waited for the IM to automatically start…
…and then remembered I had deleted my account.
“Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck!” I screamed and beat my fist on the carpet.
I rolled to my stomach as my arms, side, and knee all protested the shift in position. I pulled up Google, found the right app, created a new account, screamed at whatever bastard had snatched up SoccerGod2014, and managed to create one called NeedMyRumple instead. With a few more keystrokes, I opened up my little hacking program to get into her account.
Again, I started with the “be online” chant.
I accepted the friend request and waited for her profile to pop up in the otherwise empty list of friends.
BeautifulSkye18’s status was offline.
“Arrrghhh!!!” I screeched and dropped my head to the floor. My temples were pounding, my pulse could clearly be felt in every artery in my body, and I was really, really close to throwing up. I squeezed my eyes shut, and my vision went blurry. There were tears in my eyes, which just pissed me off. I reached out once more, set BeautifulSkye18’s profile to notify me with a chime when her status changed, turned the volume to the highest setting, and passed out.
There was some cat screeching at me, and I couldn’t figure out why.
Meow! Meow! Meow!
It was fucking loud, too, and my head was pounding.
Meow! Meow! Meow!
My eyes opened slowly, and I tried to figure out where I was and what I was doing there.
Closet…I’m in my closet…
Why?
I closed my eyes again.
Meow! Meow! Meow!