The Intrusion

Twenty-Nine

[Andy]

Sometimes I feel like overthinking may be one of the most dangerous things a person can do.

I've been thinking a lot lately.

I've been thinking a lot about last night.

I'm not sure what happened, but I remember what happened. I remember it fairly well.

After two rounds of shots, Jess felt sick, so she called a cab and went home. I told her I'd call her later, and then I deleted all of our text messages from Jordan's phone.

I remember the night very clearly, right up until I started walking home. Then, everything became hazy.

What happened isn't what I've been thinking about so much—it's more the how. I can't explain it.

In a weird way, there is a part of me that liked it. It was thrilling.

There is also a part of me that is terrified. Something like that shouldn't be possible. The fact that I can't explain it and can't make sense of it is unsettling.

I got a text message from my sister this morning:

Alice: Hi Andy how's it going? How did dinner with Jordan go? Hope everything's okay with you.

I didn't respond.

What am I supposed to tell her? How do you tell someone about something like this?

I wish I could tell Alice about it—about everything that happened last night. I need to tell someone other than you about all this, but also, I wish I could tell her because somehow in a weird way I feel like it might make her happy. That's what she's always wanted for me. The way I was with Jess last night—that's what she's always wanted.

But I can't tell her.

I can't tell anyone. No one would believe me because it isn't possible, and there's no way I can prove that it even happened. Part of me wonders if maybe it didn't happen. Maybe it was all just a bizarre, surreal dream. That would be the easiest explanation. But, deep down, I know that isn't the case. I'm grasping at that idea because the alternative is so frightening I don't want to believe it's the truth, but somehow, I know that it is.

It has to be.

When we were kids, Alice and I decided to run away from home once. I was around six at the time, which would put her at around nine. It was in the early evening of a long summer day. We were out in the backyard husking corn for dinner as the fireflies blinked out of the ravine behind the house. Even in late August, the nights got chilly, so we were bundled up in our Autumn jackets.

After finishing husking her third cob while I was still uselessly trying to break the end off of my first, Alice threw the corn she was holding onto the picnic table and proclaimed: "Andy, I say, we've put up with this ridiculous child labor for long enough! It's high time we ran away!"

Yes, that is exactly how she said it, too, in case you were wondering. She must have been learning about the horrors of child labor in her social studies class at school at the time or something and gotten it into her head.

So with that, Alice and I decided to run away.

First, we snuck back into the house through the patio door. Then, we crept into the kitchen unnoticed. We grabbed two bags of Cheez-Its from the pantry because we would need food (since we were running away, after all) and then we were off—out the front door and into the world.