30 Days - Order

[felicitygs]

 Something is out of place.

 

He pauses as he walks in, but he cannot place what it is immediately. His eyes roam over the bookcase and then the desk. Everything is still alphabetical, the papers are still lined up exactly an inch from the corner. The laptop is off and closed, the chair two inches from fully flush to the desk’s edge.

 

Not the desk then.

 

He walks into his room, setting his bookbag down exactly an inch from the wall and half a foot from the door. Already it feels like his skin is itching, an his hand twitches.

 

Something is off, and he has no idea what it is.

 

“Thomas?” his mother calls hours later, “it’s dinner.”

 

He freezes, in the middle of remaking the bed for the fourth time, trying to smooth the sheets, trying to get a sense of right back.