Déjà vu hit hard and she was instantly thrown back to when she was a child. She turned around to see Mr. Shultz sitting in a chair staring at her through the open doorway.

He stood slowly and walked towards her, but stopped on his side of the door frame. “I knew I should have fired you the moment I saw you.”

She stood frozen in the office. She couldn’t understand how he had appeared so suddenly and quietly and with a chair that definitely hadn’t been there when she first walked in.

“No matter,” he said. “You’re fired now.”

She couldn’t be fired. She was so close to having answers. She didn’t move.

“C’mon. Time to leave. Chop-chop.” He clapped his hands as he motioned her through the door.

When she still didn’t make a move to leave, he sighed in impatience. “Seriously, Sarah, this is the second time I’ve caught you breaking into my office. Don’t make me call the police,” he said, quietly.

She narrowed her eyes and walked towards him. “So you do recognize me?”

He shrugged. “Not at first. But once you broke into my office again, you triggered a memory. Clearly Andrea didn’t do her research on my new assistant as well as I paid her to.”

“What happened to me?” she asked. “Why can’t I remember the time I was gone.”

He shrugged. “You tell me. You broke in, then you ran away.”

“I was a gone for a month!” she said. “How do you explain that?”

“What you do with your time, and where you spend it is none of my business. Now go.”

“Alright, let’s talk about you. That was twenty years ago! Explain how you haven’t aged a day!”

“Suntan lotion and great skin care.” He smiled while simultaneously glaring with his eyes

She glared back at him as she walked by him. “I will figure out what happened to me.”

“I hope you find the answers you’re looking for, but they simply aren’t here.” He shut the front door firmly behind her. Then, she heard the bolt snap shut.

As she walked home, a feeling of dread slowly fell over her like molasses dripping down, dragging her heart to her toes. She’d been fired. She’d never been fired before. And she still didn’t have any answers.

The phone in her purse started buzzing. She yanked it out and saw her text messages, emails, and voicemail blinking. The numbers slowing racking up with each ping. The last time her phone had done that was when she’d gone to Mexico and come back into the country. Her phone had gone ballistic trying to catch up on two weeks worth of missed messages.

But she when she looked at the screen now she barely registered the increasing tally. She only had eyes for the date. It was exactly one month later than she thought. Somehow, she’d just lost another month. A smile slowly spread across her face. Maybe she was closer to some answers than she thought.