I felt like death.

For the past week I'd woken up at five in the morning for my trial shifts at the gym. Dev had walked me through all my responsibilities and the health and safety protocols, and I'd work until 11.30am before heading to the café for my usual shifts at 12pm. Then, I'd go back to the gym for my training sessions, followed by the University library to try (and fail) to get some more work done. I hadn't come home until after 11pm most days, and just the thought of waking up at five again for another 6am shift was painful. Thankfully, as I'd already handed in my one week notice at the café, today would be my last shift there.

Despite how exhausted I felt, I didn't for a second regret what I was doing. Working for the gym, so far, was far less taxing than café work. Random strangers hadn't shouted at me yet, and I didn't have to stand on my feet for hours at a time, or burn myself while making people their drinks. The most I had to do was walk someone new around the gym if they were thinking of signing up, and that was only if no one else was available. The most physical work I'd had to do was clean the women's changing room when there'd been no other women on shift. Beyond that, it was easy work; and there was the added benefit of getting to see Markus throughout the day, of course.

"You look like shit," Lynch said as he passed reception on the way to his first smoke break of the day, diverting my attention away from the blurred screen of the computer. I blinked up at him, taking a second longer than I should to process the fact that he had been speaking to me, let alone understand what he had said.

"What a lovely greeting," I said dryly, my voice hoarse. When was the last time I drank anything?

I'd had a coffee this morning. No, wait, two coffees. No wonder I was feeling so jittery. I need to buy a new water bottle to stay hydrated, and I needed to remember to wash this one. God, I had so much washing to do at home. I was quickly running out of clean clothes. I hope I didn't smell bad. I forgot to shower this morning.

Lynch's water bottle thudded on the top of the desk. He leant against his forearms and narrowed his eyes at me, scrutinising me with too much focus. "What's up with you?"

"Tired," I said through a poorly stifled yawn.

"How much sleep did you get last night? You look like you're about to pass out."

"I was up doing uni work."

His eyebrows raised in surprise. "Weren't you in at six this morning?"

"Yeah," I signed, resting my head in my hand as I looked up at him. I could barely keep my eyes open. "I'm an idiot, I know."

Lynch hummed and stood up straighter. He nodded towards the main door as he asked, "You need a breather, or something? Want to step outside with me for five?"

Following his gaze to the street outside, it took longer than it should have for me to respond. It felt like my brain was literally melting. "I'm good, thanks."

Lynch hummed again, and looked somewhat annoyed as he headed for the door, a cigarette in hand and his water bottle forgotten on the desk. "Okay. Maybe you should have a power nap on your break. Or get a coffee."

I nodded. "Will do." If I have another coffee, I might be sick.

The rest of my shift continued in the same fashion. I greeted customers with a false enthusiasm that was perhaps not as bright or welcoming as it had been at the beginning of the week. I answered the phones and struggled to use the booking system on the computer to schedule people in for classes with the weird fog that had my brain functioning about 80% less effective than usual.

The gym offered far more than I was previously aware of. Not only were there Lynch's spin classes, and Markus' martial arts activities for kids, but about a dozen more group work outs and training programs for gym members, all of which had many attendees. Plus, so many people used the facilities in the early morning as soon as my shift began that there was always enough work to keep me busy. Something I really struggled with today.

I couldn't wait to be done with the cafe, and I was counting down the hours until I could be reunited with my bed again.

After five hours of desperately trying not to fall asleep at the desk, before I left for my last shift at the cafe, I found Dev alone in his office. Sat behind the desk with a tablet in his lap, his glasses hanging low on the end of his nose, he swiped away at the bright screen. I said nothing as I entered, and it was only as I collapsed into the chair opposite him that he realised I was there.

"Shitting hell, Daisy," he cursed, so startled that he'd dropped the tablet and clutched dramatically at his chest.

I only smiled, too drained to laugh at his ridiculous reaction.

"Is it 11.30 already?" he asked, checking his watch.

"Yeah, I'm just about to head out to the cafe," I murmured, closing my eyes, and I slouched deeper into my seat. I could so easily fall asleep right here.

"It's your last day today, right?"

"Uhuh."

"Will you be coming back at four for our session?" I might genuinely pass out if I have to do any exercise beyond a slow walk today. Even that seemed like too much. Maybe I could get an Uber to the cafe. "Daisy?"

"What? Oh... Can we give it a miss today?" Silence greeted me. When I cracked open my eyes to check he had heard me, Dev's concerned expression greeted me. "What?"

He shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing. We can skip today if you need to."

"Okay, sick. Cool. Thanks. I still want to train on Monday. I'm just, yeah, you know, right now, very..." I paused, and wrinkled my nose. Why is my brain being such a little bitch today? "That didn't make any sense. Start again." Deep breath. "I'm tired today. I need sleep."

"That's clear," Dev drawled.

I shot him a dirty look.

"Don't give me that face. You're the one who's so sleep deprived they're incapable of stringing a basic sentence together. At least it's Saturday tomorrow. You can sleep in."

"I've literally been thinking about the weekend, and the ridiculously long lie in I'm going to have, all week. I honestly don't think I was made to wake up before 10am. It is a crime of nature for me to be up before the sunrise."

Dev laughed. "You're the one who wanted this job."

"I know, I know," I groaned. "But wanting to work here and enjoying experiencing the world at five am are two very different things."

"You're such a teenager."

"Rude. Also, I'm twenty-three. I'm not a teenager."

"Daisy, I'm forty-six, you're practically a baby."

"I'm not the one doing today's wordle on my work tablet during my shift. Have you done anything productive today?"

"No, actually," Dev mused, removing his glassed to rub his eyes. "Markus came in early today for whatever reason and he's distracted me all morning."

"Markus is here already?" His shifts didn't start until 1pm. Why would he come in if he wasn't needed? Come to think of it, I hadn't seen him much lately. I'd started to cut our training sessions short.

"Talking about me?" A deep voice echoed in my ear, accompanied by the graze of someone's breath against the length of my neck.

"Fuck me!" I lurched forward in my chair, my heart leaping into my throat.The sound of Markus' throaty laughter erupted from behind me, quickly followed by the sound of Dev also laughing at my expense. I whirled in my seat to glare at the hulking man crouched behind me. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Don't creep up on someone like that!"

Dev scoffed and when I fixed my glare on him, he merely pointed directly at me and smugly uttered, "Karma."

Shooting him the middle finger, I quickly clambered to my feet, no longer feeling so exhausted with the sudden rush of adrenaline to fuel me. "You're both dicks."

"Oh, come on," Markus laughed, reaching for me. "Where are you going? I'm sorry."

"Away from you bullies."

Markus raised a brow at me, his expression enough convey how ridiculous he thought I was. "You're much grouchier than usual." What the fuck was that supposed to me? Was I usually grouchy? "Have you eaten anything today?"

"Yes."

"What?" Markus asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

"I've had a caramel latte for breakfast, and a mocha for a mid-morning snack."

"Well, that's not food, is it?"

"It had milk in it. Milk is technically food. It contains calories."

"Bugs are technically a food but if you told me you'd eaten fucking ants for breakfast, I wouldn't class it as a meal."

"I am far too tired to understand whatever the hell you're talking about. Anyway, I have to go. I'll see you... whenever I see you. I don't know when that will be and I don't have enough brain power to think that far ahead."

"You're not training today?" Markus asked with a frown.

"No. Too tired."

Markus hummed, his eyebrows knitting together. He shared an undecipherable look with Dev over my shoulder. "You're tired a lot lately."

The stress of my brother's debt is keeping me awake at night. I'm working too much with too little rest and despite sensing an imminent burnout, I'm going to do absolutely nothing to rectify the situation. I'm real responsible like that.

"Yeah, I have a shitty sleep schedule at the moment. Just your standard student problems. Ask me when the last time I ate a piece of fruit is, you'll have a heart attack," I joked with a weak laugh. I really didn't want to talk about Jarred. It didn't help that I was usually someone who blurted out anything and everything that came to mind, something that only worsened when I was tired. My verbal filter all my melted away as soon as I had any less than seven hours sleep. The only safest option would be for me to escape this conversation as soon as possible. "Anyway, I have to go to work or I'll be late, not that they can fire me, but, you know, I want a good reference for my CV and all that." I didn't give either of them any time to say more, snatching my backpack from the floor and darting around Markus out of the office.

***

Sarah stood in front of the Tv, blocking my view, with her hands planted firmly on her hips in an oddly confrontational manner for someone who usually avoided arguments at all costs. I was half asleep, struggling to pay any attention to what was happening on the show, let alone whatever it was Sarah was about to say.

"You haven't been going in to uni."

"What do you mean?" I mumbled, blinking heavily.

"Do you think I'm an idiot?" Sarah asked, in an overly sweet voice that had me narrowing my eyes.

"No..."

"You've skipped uni this entire week. What's going on?"

"Classes have been cancelled. My tutors' sick," I lied half-heartedly, smothering a yawn behind my hand.

"All of them?" Sarah pursed her lips. "All your tutors are sick? Martin? Craig? That mean one that you don't like and I can't remember the name of? They're all sick?"

Why had I even tried to hide it from her? I turned my face into one of the cushions to hide my smile. This wasn't an appropriate time to laugh. "Yes," I said, peeking at Sarah from the corner of my eye. Like me, she was now fighting back a smile as she continued with her 'Stern Parent' façade. "They all came down with smallpox."

"Oh wow," Sarah breathed sarcastically. "Has anyone contacted the World Health Organisation to let them know Smallpox hasn't been eradicated? Who was patient zero? It was martin wasn't it?"

"Who else?" I sighed woefully, shaking my head playfully as I averted my gaze. "That man is riddled with diseases. It was only a matter of time before this happened."

"That makes sense. And your scheduled studio sessions, the ones where you don't need a tutor supervising, those have been cancelled because of smallpox too?"

"Wouldn't want to catch it. Super infectious, you know."

Sarah and I stared at each other in silence. I kept my expression as serious as possible while she looked at me with an expression that obviously said, 'Stop bullshitting me, you dick.'

Sarah rolled her eyes and sighed once the silence between us stretched on to an uncomfortable length of time. "You know I'm not your mum, and I'm not going to tell you off for skipping classes, right? It's not my business what you do."

Releasing a heavy breath, I shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, still half hiding my face from view. It wasn't like I had been intentionally hiding everything from her, but it was true that I hadn't sought her out to tell her about my new job either. Because I wasn't an idiot, I was aware of how ridiculously taxing this plan of mine was. But it didn't need to be sustainable.

I hadn't told anyone the whole truth, though. I hadn't explained to Dev or Markus why I had suddenly asked to work at the gym, and I certainly hadn't spoken to Jarred about it either. He had enough to worry about as it was.

"I quit the café. My last shift was today. I work at the gym now, but starting next week my contracted shifts are six while four which means I can't go to any of my lectures. But it's fine, they're all pointless, anyway. As long as I still go to my one-on-one tutor sessions, which I'll schedule in my lunch breaks or after four, then I'm not actually missing anything. I can work in the studio whenever 'cause it's open 24-7, and all the slides and audio recordings of the lectures are uploaded to Blackboard. Roman can fill me in on everything else I miss."

"This doesn't - I don't - Why?" Sarah stumbled through her words, eyebrows scrunched into a heavy frown.

"Why what?"

"I've literally been gone a week for half-term, and in that time you've quit your job and replaced it with one that doesn't at all fit your schedule? What is happening? Was the café really that bad?"

"It's only a temp job, I'm covering someone maternity leave. I'll save up from this," lie, "and get a better job that doesn't make me want to die," unlikely, "and start going to classes again," that was still to be decided, I really hated those lectures.

Sarah's mouth opened wordlessly, and her frown, somehow, deepened even further. Why did it feel like I was about to be reprimanded? "Okay," she breathed under her breath. "Okay, okay, okay."

She turned away from me, took two steps towards the kitchen, before spinning back around. Her hands clapped together in front of her as she said sharply, "Sorry, no, you realise maternity leave can last, like, eight months, right?"

Eight months?! Well, shit. That would be all of Second Year.

"You're going to have to go to uni every now and again. If your attendance gets really bad, they could kick you out."

Rubbing at my eyes, I muttered, "Okay, well... I probably won't be there for that long. This is just for a bit. I was going to ask Jun if I can work at the studio. Roman's started tattooing now, so I might be able to cover his receptionist stuff in the evenings."

I had planned on asking to work at the studio in the evenings, but that would be in addition to working at the gym. Jun had mentioned a few times that she would hire me again if I ever needed it, and alongside saving for Jarred, I still needed to pay my rent and buy food. If I worked at the gym until the afternoon, then at the tattoo studio into the evening for a few hours, in just three months I'd have enough money for Jarred. Sure, it would be tough working over twelve hours, five days a week, on top of my uni work, but it was only temporary. I could survive this easily. I needed to.

"If this is what you want to do, then I'll support it," Sarah said, not sounding at all happy about it, but wisely she dropped the subject. "Are you going to bed, you look exhausted?"

"No." I waved an arm above my head, pointing in the general direction of the kitchen. "I'm waiting for my food to cook."

I had a pasta bake cooking in the oven, and a Vietnamese style broth on the stove alongside a tomato and red pepper soup. Basically, I had just shoved everything I had in my fridge that was about to go off into various pots with some seasoning and stock and left them to cook while I rested my eyes on the sofa.

"You're eating this late?"

"I haven't had time to eat anything this week. I can't even remember when I last a proper meal," I explained with a yawn. The pasta bake should be nearly done now but the thought of getting up to turn the stove off was horrifying. It had been so busy today at the café for some reason and my feet ached so much. "I'm cooking a bunch of stuff to freeze for next week. I don't want to keep wasting my money on meal-deals or Greggs. I also haven't eaten an actual vegetable in about six days."

"And what time are you up each day?"

"Five-thirty."

"You're going to be exhausted."

"Yup."

"Do you have work Saturday?"

"My Saturday plans are to sleep in until sometime after lunch, then go study with Roman and Markus." The alarm signalling the pasta was done, rang sharp enough to have me flinching away from the phone that I'd stupidly placed directly next to my face.

Trudging towards the kitchen to turn off the oven, I finally noticed Sarah's appearance. She looked good. She looked different. Her hair was curled and styled, and she was wearing a full face of make-up alongside a short black skirt and a thin pink jumper.

"Where are you going so late?" I asked. It was too late to be going on a date.

"Just out."

"Just out?" I asked, arching an eyebrow, before my eyes widened. "Wait. Is this a booty call?"

"I'll see you tomorrow?" Sarah ignored my question with a smile, edging towards the front door.

"Sarah, are you going on a booty call, right now?"

"I'll see you tomorrow. Get some sleep!" She called out behind her, waving at me as she slipped out the front door with a grin.

That sneaky little bitch. The next time I saw her, she'd be getting an interrogation, for sure.

[sorry for randomly disappearing on you all. It was a horrible combo of seasonal depression, extra shifts at work to cover sick people, and then me getting sick too

I actually wrote this chapter ready to post three months ago, decided it didn't feel right and I was going to post a different chapter first. But then I struggled writing the new one and put couldn't find the time to really focus on it, so I've circled right back to this one. Maybe once the book is finished I'll play around with the order of the chapters again, but for now I feel too guilty not to upload any later]