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NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK EARTH-616
JUDE WRIGHT wasn't sure how long her alarm had been ringing, but it didn't take an idiot to realize she was late. She slammed her hand down on her phone, turned off the alarm, and almost fell as she jumped from bed to closet. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," she muttered under her breath, trying to find the blazer she'd picked out last night. Why wasn't it here? This was her closet, for Christ's sake!
Her head whipped in the direction of her vanity, the same broken vanity she'd gotten off of Facebook marketplace the first week she moved to New York. The blazer hung on a hanger, dangling off a knob on one of her drawers. She had laid out her entire outfit last night, so she wouldn't have to go searching in the morning. Little did her past self realize that she was an idiot, and now she'd spent an extra five minutes she didn't have to search for a goddamn blazer.
Jude wasn't usually like this in the mornings. She wasn't usually late. She wasn't rushing around trying to put her shirt and pants on at the same time. But today was different. "Today will be different," she told herself, brushing her hair back into a low ponytail. And despite her blazer having a few wrinkles, and needing to use a Tide To-Go stick to get a stain out of her trousers, Jude knew today could be a defining moment in her career.
Most people said she was lucky with the spot she'd gotten, even if it was basically like living a lie. For one thing, she didn't go by her actual first name at work. She chose to go by her middle name, Jude, forgoing her real name, Willodean, along with her southern roots. Jude had a complicated relationship with her childhood, with her parents, and everything in between. Her dad, Deacon Wright, was a preacher in a little town in Louisiana called Barton Hollow, and he had raised Jude in the church. He was obsessed with it and ensured his daughter got in no trouble, stayed pure and true to God. Her mother, Bonnie-Mae Right, was the same way, but left a little space in her heart for opioids. Jude and Bonnie-Mae stopped being on speaking terms when she found out her mother owed someone a lot of money and started dealing laced drugs to teenagers. And Jude, being the saint she was told to be, ratted her to the police. Bonnie-Mae got twenty years for that one, but was released after eight due to good behavior. Jude tried her best to forget about them, forget all about her life in Louisiana, when she went to college on scholarship. Even lost her accent after a few years. She was no longer that girl anymore.
