The Intrusion

Twenty-Two

[?]

It's night, and the air is thick and glowing. I can hardly breath. Everything around me feels like a cool, dense liquid. A viscous gel.

It's happened again.

I'm not in my room anymore. I'm not in my apartment anymore. I'm not in my building anymore. I'm not even in my body anymore.

My flesh crawls. Itching. Insects and worms burrow and squirm beneath my skin—hundreds and thousands of microscopic creatures with tiny teeth and jaws creating hundreds and thousands of tunnels intersecting again and again and joining together to form a maze so intricate it would take all of the blood in all of my body to fill it. My skin caves in on my bones into the minuscule, collapsing cavities and crevices, but I know none of it is actually physical—but that's not to say it isn't real—it's just that it's only real inside my mind.

I know what's happened—I've crossed the street again.

I just have to go back to sleep, that's it. That's how it works. Once I go back to sleep, I'll wake up as myself again. I'll wake up in my own body again.

I close my eyes and slowly I drift off. My mind slips, pulling away from the tethers of reality, my thoughts getting more and more mixed up and incongruous—ready to go—but right as I slide back into comfortable darkness, a loud buzzing pierces through the still silence, pulling me back to the present. My eyes shoot open.

The buzzing comes from the nightstand next to me. I sit up and squint as I stare at the lit-up screen on Jordan's phone, trying to read what it says, but everything is still too blurry—my eyes need time to adjust. It buzzes again. She's getting a text message.

Perhaps it's just curiosity—but I reach out to the night stand and pick up the phone. I bring it close to my face so I can see it better. The locked screen displays that it is 10:37pm and that the message is from a contact titled "Jess Waitress," but that's it.

Jess Waitress.

That's odd.

I remember the waitress at the bar Jordan and I went to Sunday night telling us her name was Jess. I wonder if this could be her, and somehow, I get the feeling that it has to be her. In fact, I'm almost 100% certain of it. No way it's a coincidence.

It can't be.

There are no such things as coincidences. No. Such. Thing. A hushed voice whispers in my head with an unsettling familiarity I can't shake—like déjà vu. I know I've never heard it before, but yet at the same time it seems so familiar.

Before I can think about it any further, my fingers suddenly twitch to life and unlock the phone like a reflex, swiping smoothly over the lock-pattern. Maybe somehow it's stored deep inside the wiring of Jordan's head, which I must be in now. Maybe my consciousness or spirit has somehow been transplanted into her brain—like taking files out of one computer on a zip drive and loading them onto a different computer—the files being the consciousness—that evanescent data that makes up the person or maybe a more appropriate word would be the soul—and the computer being the brain.

Although, I don't know if that analogy really makes all that much sense. Brains and consciousness and souls and people and spirits are a lot more complicated than computers and zip drives and files and data, but that's the simplest way I can think of to describe this.

Before allowing my mind to get itself tangled up into an even tighter pretzel than it already is, I stop myself from contemplating about the how and the what and the why.

Instead, I look at Jordan's phone and read the text message:

Jess Waitress: Hey girl, I know this is last minute and it's a week night, but Monday night is Friday night if you are a waitress! I was wondering if you might wanna to grab drinks with me by any chance. :)

Huh.

I wonder why the waitress from the bar last night would be texting Jordan about going out for drinks. Jordan didn't even talk to her while we were there, let along exchange numbers with her. Unless... Maybe Jordan talked to her after I left. Or, maybe Jordan already knew her somehow before we even went there.

That doesn't seem right. Jordan wouldn't have pretended not to know the waitress. There would be no reason for that. The only logical explanation is that Jordan must have started talking to her after I left. That has to be it.

But why?

That's what I keep coming back to: the why.

It's strange, I've always been content to just wonder about things and not ever really reach an answer. Just ponder in my mind and allow it to work and spin itself in circles. I've always kind of enjoyed it and gotten a rush from it—the not knowing, that is. Exploring the possibilities and not ever really knowing what the truth of it all is.

But for some reason, right now, I have this insatiable desire to know the truth—this hounding curiosity eating away in the depths of my mind.

I have to ignore it. This isn't right.

Me: I can't.

Thirty seconds later:

Jess Waitress: :(

Jess Waitress: Come on, please? Why not, what's your excuse? ;)

Excuse... Well, I have a pretty good excuse. But I can't tell Jess that!

Me: No excuse. Just don't feel up to it tonight.

Jess Waitress: Booooo!!! Come out girl! Booo!!!

I press my forefingers into the corners of my eyes. I don't know what to tell her. I don't know what to do. The only excuse I can come up with is the truth, and I can't tell anyone that. I don't know what to do. Finally, I send this message:

Me: Alright, fine. Where do you want to meet up?

I get a reply back from her a minute later.

Jess Waitress: ELR Bar on Howe Street?

And then immediately this:

Jess Waitress: 30 minutes?

Howe Street. I know where that is. That's not that far of a walk from here. Thirty minutes is do-able. I type in my response.

Me: Sounds good. See you there.

I watch the three little dots dance on the screen while Jess types. Five seconds later, I get this response:

Jess Waitress: :) Yay!

I guess that's it then. I'm going out tonight.

I breath in a heavy sigh. This isn't going to be good. But, on the bright side, I might get to figure out what is going on with Jordan and this waitress.

Who knows, maybe this will be fun.