This isn't weird.

Monster

Ben had become increasingly agitated as of late. With Millie, he still made a point to maintain his usual level of charm and good cheer, but in every other sphere of his life, he found himself bristling against everyone he encountered.

The party had been, perhaps, too much for him. The following months were marked by a perpetually growing ache of physical frustration that he didn't know how to channel. He rarely slept more than a few hours a night anymore. Restless desperation had created a new habit of taking long, lonely walks in the middle of the night, roaming the city with no destination, until his feet were aching and his body was exhausted. Even still, he would return home and find himself lying awake until sunrise. The insomnia was taking a toll on his body. He had headaches more often than not—sometimes just a minor, persistent discomfort, other times a debilitating agony that had him burying his eyes and ears into a pillow for entire days.

For the first few weeks, he managed to keep the migraines a secret from Millie, irrationally averse to letting her see him in such a pathetic condition. Soon, however, they became too frequent and too severe to hide. The first time one hit him while he was in her presence, she helped him to his room, turned out the lights, and laid in bed with him for hours, just running her fingers through his hair. It was the first time anything had actually helped with the pain.

It became a sort of ritual. At least once a week, a migraine would overtake him. He had only to text her, and she would drop everything to come take care of him. She would let herself in without a word, climb silently into his bed, and stay there with him in the dark, gingerly massaging his scalp until either the pain was gone, or he fell asleep. It was the only time he ever got truly restful sleep, and it was glorious, but every time she left, that frustrated ache was just a little bit worse, and he grew that much more neurotic.

His social life was strained. Game nights were still fun, for the most part—with Millie there to keep him in check, he got along with his friends fine. But part of him was always quietly seething, maddened by the unlikely camaraderie she had found with Dustin. It was unnerving to watch them slowly growing closer, to imagine the two of them spending time alone together. They seemed to understand each other in a way Ben simply couldn't, as if they shared a cultural background that was foreign to the rest of their friend group, and it didn't make any goddamn sense. They made references that went over his head, talked about books and bands he had never heard of. They had their own inside jokes. They had their own inside jokes.

His work life wasn't faring much better. He had developed an uncharacteristic knack for being hypercritical of even the most insignificant details of everyone else's work—things he knew, objectively, didn't fucking matter, but his stupid brain wouldn't stop finding faults, and his stupid mouth wouldn't stop broadcasting them. Coworkers that he had always been well-liked by now took great pains to avoid him when at all possible, and conversations would fall silent whenever anyone noticed him in earshot. At this point, he was sure he was one petty outburst away from losing his job; he had been firmly asked to take a vacation week to get his shit together.

He couldn't go to work, he couldn't stand to look at his friends, he couldn't focus on anything enough to enjoy it. The only thing he actively wanted was to be near Millie, but no matter how badly he wished for it, she couldn't fill every hour of his days. She had her own job, and Genevieve, who was monopolizing more and more of her evenings, and all he could do was count the minutes until Wednesday, that shining moment of the week when he knew that no matter what, spending the morning with her was guaranteed. Weird Bagels were an institution that, with the sole exception of the time her coworker had been injured, she would never miss.

To pass the time, he cleaned obsessively. Over and over he scrubbed every surface, vacuumed every carpet, organized and re-organized every pantry, closet, and bookshelf in the house. Everything was spotless and none of it ever was to his satisfaction.