Wake Up Call

I opened my eyes to the dripping from the leak in the ceiling. This shithole ruined any chance I had at sleep. I went to turn over and was met with the grey, soulless eyes of a woman. In one swift movement, I was out of my bed, crab walking towards the door. It slammed, and the woman arose. Her neck was craned awkwardly and a pool of blood was endlessly dripping from her wrists down her fingers, leaving a trail of blood behind her.

“I’m unrecognizable to you, huh?” she whispered.

“Wh-- who--”

“I had to get a nose job. Don’t worry, the surgeon is understanding and doesn’t ask too many questions.”

“Wh-- why are you here! Who are you! What do you want!”

“I’m you. You’re so young now... I forgot how young I was.”

″What are you talking about?"

"You just swiped right on Caleb, right?"

"H-- how do you--"

"I'm you. I died a few years ago. I was haunting this scientist who said he'd help me prevent my death. We found the trigger and as soon as it happens in any reality, I appear."

"Why?"

"Caleb was my husband. I married him at seventeen. I ran away to be with him and everything. We were inseparable. I helped raise his two small kids, and there were no signs of trouble until I got pregnant."

"I don't even know him yet. We just talked about--"

"Puppies," she interrupted. "It made me think he was sensitive. He didn't send a dick pic on the first night. We had the same political feelings. Similar work ethics. Determination. When Grandma dies in a few months, he becomes my shoulder to cry on. When Darren goes to jail, he helps me through it. We talk about our pasts, our futures, our goals, desires. He becomes my everything in eighteen months."

"I'm not going to fall."

"No one knows they fall until they hit the ground. You'll hit the ground when he gets in a car accident and you can't talk to him and are desperately trying to reach him and ensure he's okay. You'll coddle him through the death of his youngest son. You will fall for him, convince yourself that you are ready to be a wife and mother at seventeen, abandon your family over something petty, and end up screwed."

"But you clearly committed suicide," I said snidely.

"Already protecting a man you just met," she replied with a snide smirk. "This is how I know this is right. I did commit suicide after he beat me until my kids were dead in my body then took the only living child away from me. He left me broke and destitute, then married some crater-faced sixteen-year-old cheerleader and put on Facebook that my daughter calls her Mommy. I am twenty-two. My daughter has no idea I ever existed. I can't do anything. I lived on the street because I had nothing and even if I had enough to go back home, Mom would laugh at me becaude she told me he was a pedophile in the beginning and I stupidly defended him. This is your warning call. Go change your clothes, wipe the piss off your floor, and delete that stupid app. You're a kid. You shouldnt be doing dumb shit this young, and unless you would like to be dead ceaselessly yelling at yourself to get your shit together, you'll change."

I sat, stunned, in that spot until long after she was gone. The sun was peeling over the horizon when a buzz from my phone startled me from my spot near my door.

"Hello from Philly! :)" Caleb had written.

My atomach churned with disgust and I stared at the message for a long time.

"You there or did you just leave your app open?"

"Happens to me all the time."

"Hello???"

"Earth to Dahlia"

I opened my keyboard and started to type back for him to fuck off, then that I couldnt talk to him, then for him to leave me alone. Finally, I closed the keyboard and the app and uninstalled it. I tossed my phone back on my bed, wiped my eyes, and went to take a shower.