Hugh’s early day routine was such an interesting phenomena to him. He followed the same steps, at the same time, in the same pattern, everyday, and it worked. Well, so long as you never expected something more out of him, that is. Ask even a simple task to be added to the morning startup, and everything would inevitably fall apart, and Hugh would end up with two different shoes on, unkempt hair, and be at least 5 minutes late. Oh, and the new morning addition would be forgotten as well.

As such, being asked to drop off super important paperwork in the morning went about as well as Hugh thought it would. As in, it completely ruined everything, and he cursed everyone and everything under his breath, and sometimes not so under his breath, as he floundered through the start of his day, burning his eggs, wearing the wrong shoes to college, and, of course, forgetting the paperwork in his car, leaving him a stammering apologetic mess once he got inside the office building where he needed to drop off the medical records of his sister. While the lady at the front desk was polite and sweet, with a smile that could melt your face off, he felt her stare burn holes in his back as he slunk back to his car to grab the papers he forgot.

If this morning gets any better, I might just go home and forget the rest of the day, he thought defeatedly.

After returning back to the lady with the burning eyes and flashy smile, he sat down in one of the cushy armchairs in the sitting area. He pulled out his phone and started reading, as he felt that engaging in conversation with people at the clinic would be cringe-inducing at best, and potentially horrific at worst.

So he didn’t.

However, he did decide to eavesdrop on the guy sitting two seats behind him. Not on purpose, he told himself, but more so that an angry muttering guy at the mental clinic would be more interesting than reading the same article about stock prices changing for the third time in a row. It seemed this distressed man was muttering at an app, getting ever more agitated. At this point, it seemed to be progressing towards something a bit too serious, not to mention LOUD for Hugh’s liking, so he decided to step in and hopefully stop it now. 

“Hey, uh, man, whatcha doin?” Hugh awkwardly spit out. The man, clearly in his late 30’s, with little hair on his head, and dark circles around his eyes, turned to look at him. Hugh flinched under his gaze. The man sat and stared for a moment, just long enough to make Hugh even more uncomfortable. Finally, he said in a deadpan tone, “It’s a hookup app.”

What.