The Intrusion

Thirty-One

[Jordan]

Andy is fast asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. I put him in the recovery position so that if he does vomit during his sleep he'll throw up over his pillow rather than in his own throat.

I consider staying with him to make sure he's all right, but then my compassionate streak wears off and my impatient nature takes precedence. He's breathing. He's in the recovery position. He's an adult, and he got into this mess by himself. He can get over it by himself, too.

I get him a glass of water and set it on his nightstand. His phone rests there face up. I guess he didn't bring it out with him wherever he went tonight... I mean today. It's only 5pm, after all.

Shit, Andy, what the fuck?

Suddenly, Andy's phone buzzes and the screen lights up. He's getting a text message.

Without even thinking about what I'm doing, my eyes read the notification on the screen:

Alice: Andy is everything okay? Haven't heard from you since Sunday. I'm worried are you okay please text back.

I groan. Sunday was only like, two days ago. Is this bitch fucking kidding? Andy doesn't need to deal with this bullshit. Without thinking, I pick up his phone and open it. Surprisingly, he doesn't have a passcode on it.

I select the text message.

Whoops!

My hand just slipped and deleted that message from his sister all on its own! Swear to you! I had no control over it. It just slipped! It's like it's got a mind of its own!

Huh...

That was probably a really bad thing of me to do. That was extremely intrusive and impulsive of me...

I click the phone screen off and set it back on his nightstand like it's become radioactive, guilt rising up my neck and face like heat radiating off an open fire.

I can't believe I just did that. I can't undo it at this point.

Before allowing myself to do any more damage, I check Andy one more time to make sure that he is still breathing, and then I shut his light off and get out of his apartment as quickly as I can.

I make my way to the elevator, ride it down to the lobby and head out onto the street.

When I reach my own building, I'm so flustered I completely forget I am supposed to be avoiding eye contact with the guy working at the front desk. I swing the glass door open, and our eyes lock.

All the memories of that video recording come flooding back: the image of myself leaving the apartment in the middle of the night, and then the other thing I saw. The thing I can't even begin to explain.

I open my mouth to say something to break the tension, but I have no idea what I should say. Instead, I snap my jaw shut and turn my head down, shuffling off towards the elevator and making my best attempt at disappearing.

When I get up to my floor, I collapse onto my couch and scream into the uncomfortable decorative pillow with a picture of a duck on it.

What is going on!

I pick my head up and push my hair out of my face. I give out one last scream under my breath, and I open my phone, go to Safari, and type furiously into Google:

"Sleepwalking"

I hit search, but before the results even load I click the "x" button with my thumb to cancel the search. Way too generic!

I type in: "sleep paralysis and sleepwalking" instead.

In a matter of seconds, a million results pop up, but I'm in too much of a frenzy to read more than the first couple of words of any of them. It would take me forever to go through all of these websites, articles and blog posts to find something relevant that remotely matches what I am experiencing.

I give one last attempt: "sleep paralysis sleepwalking collective-dreams and hallucinations."

The results load, and I read through them. But that just makes me scream again. I have to stop myself from throwing my phone across the room. The only thing I'm learning from this is that with each symptom I add to the search, the greater the frequency of the word "insanity" in the results.

Fuck this.

Fuck the Internet.

Time to do what I should have done a long time ago.

Time to call my mom.

I go into my contacts and click "Mom." I put the phone up to my ear and listen to it ring.

Pick up, pick up, pick up.

I need to talk to her. Tears welling up in my eyes. I don't normally freak out like this and cry, but this is too much for me. I'm so scared I may actually be losing my mind, and I just need to talk to my mom!

Please pick up.

"Hello," my mom's voice says over the phone. My heart skips a beat and a smile lights up my face. Just hearing her voice makes me know everything is going to be okay.

"Hi Mom, it's Jordan," I babble into the phone.

"You've reached Sam and Doug Harper. We can't come to the phone right now. Leave a message after the beep, and we'll get back to you."

I scream.

And then the phone beeps and I compose myself.

"Hi mom," I manage between sniffles. I'm sure I sound like I've been crying, but I guess that makes sense because I have. "I just... I just wanted to talk to you about something. Can you please just call me back when you get this. Okay, bye.."

I hang up the phone and collapse onto the couch, sobbing into the decorative duck-pillow again.

I just want to talk to my mom.