Vigilance

Nothing says a college frat party like a table covered in cheap beer cans and red soho cups and mostly empty bottles of liquor. Jason sighs, looks around at all of the people he doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know, and decides that it’s past time for him to leave.

Jason only showed up to this party in the first place in order to get his older sister, Cathy, to stop nagging him. Well, okay, Cathy doesn’t nag. She just asks, during every single phone call, if he’s enjoying himself, getting out of his room, meeting people, maybe even going to a party or two. Anything but spending all of his time in his room alone.

The fact that Jason prefers the solitude most of the time doesn’t stop Cathy from worrying that Jason’s going to forget how to speak if he goes long enough without talking to someone else. Or forget to eat, if there’s no one around to remind him.

She worries constantly about him just because Jason collapsed from exhaustion once. And because he’s the only family that Cathy has left, after their parents died last year. And because she loves him. And because he’s going to college three hours away.

Jason understands that Cathy’s scared of losing him. Still, he’d offered to stay home and not go to this school, but Cathy wouldn’t hear of it. He’s got a scholarship for here, so that’s where he’s going, and she’ll just have to deal with her silly anxieties, in her own words.

Her worries aren’t silly, in Jason’s opinion, but he does wish that there was some way of reassuring Cathy that he’s going to be fine.

Well, he will be fine as soon as he gets out of this frat house. The music is too loud, the screaming, drunk people everywhere are too loud, and Jason’s really done with being here. At least he can tell Cathy that he tried, though. He attempted to socialize. It just didn’t go all that well.

Jason’s in the entryway trying to find his jacket from the large pile of them when someone stumbles down the stairs. He thinks that she’s just another drunk college girl at first, and is planning on ignoring her, but then she sees him clearly about to leave and grabs his arm. Her grip is surprisingly tight.

“Get me out of here,” she orders. Her voice is… not steady. That’s when Jason looks at her more closely.

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How much can one interaction matter? Strangers meet all of the time without consequences. Can one meeting really be so important?

Jason doesn't know it yet, but he's someone who is at exactly the right place and time in order to change someone else's life for the better.

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Want to find out what happens next? You can check out the full story here on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BYRG39N.