The light through the window pulled me out of sleep.
It came in at an angle, the kind that only happened early, before the sun had fully committed to the day. It caught the dust in the air and held it there, slow and suspended, the way mornings do when nothing has happened yet. I watched it for a moment without moving.
I stretched. The floor was hard enough that I'd gotten used to it, which was still better than most surfaces I'd slept on in my life. I lifted my head, still dizzy.
Sherry was already sitting up on the bed, dressed, waiting for me to wake with the patience of someone who had been awake for a while and had spent the time thinking. The same light that had found me on the floor had found her too, sitting on the edge of the bed like it had been there the whole time, waiting with her.
"Finally," she said, and stood.
"I'll go to my room to prepare." She said it in a tone that was not angry and not normal. Somewhere between the two, carefully held.
