Page 5 of The Snowball Effect
Emma wasted no time as she stepped past Regan, not even bothering to snap the door closed as she jammed her phone charger into the bathroom outlet, hoping it would work.
Relief rushed through her when her phone buzzed with a sign of life, even if the battery was completely dead.
Without wasting time, she immediately started brushing her teeth with one hand, using the other to open her side of the mirror to rifle through her toiletries.
If she got herself together in the next fifteen minutes, skipped her morning coffee, and arrived at her subway stop in record time –andif the subway didn’t experience any delays – she could make it to work less than ten minutes late.
“You know, I don’t think I’veeverseen you so panicky.” Regan’s voice cut into her rushing thoughts.
Emma slid her gaze toward the doorway that Regan stood in, having not realized she was still there.
She ran her eyes over Regan, actually taking her in for the first time. Regan was wearing only a towel, wrapped snugly around her lithe body, knotted between her breasts, and her shoulder-length dark hair was thrown casually into a knot on the top of her head.
“Because I’m not,” she muttered back around her toothbrush, turning away from Regan to spit into the sink and wash her mouth out.
“What’s going on this morning, then?” Regan asked, making herself comfortable in the doorway. Instead of doing what Emma would classify as the normal thing, andgoing away.
It was what every other roommate Emma had lived with in her adult life would have done, anyway. And it was most definitely what Emma would prefer.
“My alarm didn’t go off,” she answered curtly as she quickly started tugging a brush through her hair. Typically, she kept it just below her shoulders, but it was several inches longer now; she’d been so busy in the last month that she hadn’t had the time to get it cut. “Do you know why the stovetop clock isn’t working?”
“Ohhhhh,” Regan drew out, snapping her fingers. “Yes. I do.”
Emma huffed impatiently, snapping her eyes up to meet Regan’s in the mirror. As she could have predicted, Regan was wearing a shit-eating smile on her irritatingly perfectly full lips.
“And?” She grit out.
“And there was a power outage just after midnight. It’s this crazy freaking heat wave; I can’t believe you didn’t wake up!” Regan tossed her hands in the air dramatically as if unable to evenfathomit.
Emma continued staring at her in the mirror, wondering if Regan even understood the absurdity of her comment. “Why would I have woken up from a power outage?”
“Because! It was so hot,” Regan explained, her eyebrows flying up high on her forehead as she stared at Emma likeEmmawas the insane one here. “The air conditioning shut off, obviously. I was laying on the kitchen floor with ice packs all over my body.”
“Of course you were,” she murmured, shaking her head.
Thedramatics.
“It was, like, ninety degrees in here. Literally. For at least an hour before the power came back on, and then I could finally go to sleep.”
“And yet, you didn’t set the clock on the stove,” she pointed out, unable to stop herself from rolling her eyes.
Because, of course, Regan had been awake and in the kitchen and hadn’t taken it upon herself to set the clock again.
Regan looked uncharacteristically sheepish, then. “… that’s a fair comment. Sorry. I forgot.”
The apology sounded sincere, but it was the fact that Regan hadn’t set the damn clock that was the root of Emma’s perpetual irritation with her. Therefore, she ignored it.
“My phone was plugged in all night,” she commented, gesturing down at her charging phone with her elbow as she quickly started braiding her hair over her shoulder. “Do you know why it didn’t start charging again after the power came back on?”
Regan seemed to perk up, previous sheepishness forgotten, as she nodded. “Yeah, actually! So, obviously, the apartment is in good shape, even though the building is, like, a hundred years old.” She fondly patted the wall next to her. “But, there’s a little snag when the power goes out – everything we have plugged into the outlets in our bedrooms needs to be unplugged and then plugged in again before it starts working.”
Emma could only stare at Regan with a confused, narrowed look.
Regan held up her hands as if anticipating Emma’s bafflement. “I’m not an electrician, so I don’t know how it works! But everything in the kitchen and living room turns back on like normal. It’s just our bedroom outlets that are weird.”
“This might have been useful information to have been told when I moved in,” she pointedly said, arching an eyebrow as she snapped her hair tie to secure her braid.
This time, it was Regan who shotheran incredulous look. “First – like, yeah, I guess so. But secondly and most relevantly – you would have still been sleeping when the power came back on, and I’m not allowed in your room except in case of emergencies, in your own passionate words. So… how would you have charged your phone, even if you knew about the outlets?”