Chapter 1 The Morning After

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At 5 o'clock am, a long, loud buzz of an alarm sounded near Adrian Monk's right ear. His arm immediately reached out and hit the snooze button and he sat up straight on the edge of the bed. He had already been awake since 4 this morning because of his curtains. "I knew I should've bought those blinds," he thought groggily. The curtain hanging on the right didn't hang exactly the same as the one on the left. He spent a half an hour trying to fix it, gave up, and tried to go back to sleep. However, he found the curtain too egregious to ignore and stared at it until his alarm went off.

Normally, something like that wouldn't bother him that much, but something was on his mind. And when something was on his mind, he fidgeted and cleaned even more than usual.

Monk rubbed his eyes. He knew very well what was bothering him. His date last night. He shuddered. "What a nightmare that was." he thought. Some guys at the station had set him up on a date with a woman they knew, Mary Evans. He shuddered again at the thought of her. Oh, don't misunderstand. She was gorgeous with her long, luxurious black hair and ice blue eyes. And her slender figure was nothing to sneeze at either. But her attitude towards him was a whole different story...............

Her blue eyes swept over him, examining his features. He shifted nervously; sincerely hoping she liked what she saw. The slight sneer that came over he smooth face and the coldness of her eyes dashed this idea.

"Shall we.........uh.........sit down?" he stammered nervously. An unenthusiastic "Sure" was his response.

He tried to keep a conversation going through the meal, but there were impediments. First off, he wasn't a very good conversationalist, so he could only talk about the weather and how bad the traffic was these days. Her distracted "Yeahs" and "That's trues" weren't helping his anxiety. The fact that she kept staring seductively at the young, handsome waiter made it worse. He had to excuse himself to the bathroom halfway through dinner because he was so uneasy. He cam back a few minutes later, only to find two empty chairs and a folded note on the table.

He picked up the note and read through it: "You know, Adrian, I have to be honest with you. I've been sitting with you for the past hour and I don't feel anything but bored. I just don't feel that we have a future together. I'm leaving to go out with my 'friend', Jake. Hope you don't mind. Mary"

Monk was snapped out of his thoughts by the alarm buzzing again. 5:10 am. He sighed and reached over to turn it off. He knew that he would eventually have to face his collogues, with all their questions and teasing. He sighed and rose to get ready for a new day.