Bad Trip

Jordan would have screamed if she wasn’t sure which way was up.

As a child, she vaguely remembered seeing a teacher putting a message on the board in blue before hiding it with gibberish written in other warm colors. It was only when the teacher put a sheet of red cellophane over it that the message could be read.

With each blink of the eye, the leopard headed man shifted into and out of view with a normal policeman.

She kept staring at all of the officers as they threw the now-faceless man into the back of a cruiser and began filing back into their vehicles. It was as some of the men returned to a second cruiser that she recognized the buzzed black hair one of the officers had: her brother.

Did Derek know? She hoped to God he didn’t. But even then, Jordan had just watched him effectively kill a man. And there was no panic, no one recording it on their phones. Most were going on with their lives like nothing happened, and the few who weren’t looked like they’d just watched a rousing show.

“Like I said.” Grey whispered. “What you did was a mercy. Because I would rather die than live like that.”

Jordan saw the faceless man’s head pushed against the window of the car one last time as it drove by.

----

Beads of cold sweat kept forming on Jordan’s forehead.

She could barely see the sign for the store Grey and her were walking into. It was clearly a local hardware store of some variety. Aisles of tools, parts, and everything between stretched out seemingly into infinity. The checkerboard tile floor stretched on with it, twisting and spiraling in different directions with each moment.

Jordan thought she’d be sick. But she kept her eyes on Grey, who gingerly led her into the depths of the store.

“I need you to perk up a bit,” Grey warned. “You look like you’re having a bad acid trip.”

“I feel like I am,” Jordan said. But her words were slurred coming out.

Grey turned around and put her hands on Jordan’s shoulders. “They don’t like druggies. Stay with me, ok?” She turned back around to continue leading Jordan around. “Just point out the stuff we need and I’ll get it.”

The two wandered to the back of the store, Jordan mumbling as she pointed to a new repeater, a cord, a multimeter, some wires, and a wire cutter. She listed to her left, stopping in front of several containers of penetrating oil.

She picked one up and held it up. “Niiiiice can.”

Grey whipped around, eyes wide. “What?”

Jordan held up the oil with a dizzy grin. “See?”

“Ugh.” Grey shook her head with a little smile. “Right. The withdrawal.”

With their items found, they started making their way up to the register at the front.

Grey put their items on the register counter, ducking out of the way to a nearby cooler.

The employee behind the counter was an older gentleman, his employee polo shirt stretched tight over his wide frame. He began scanning everything, occasionally looking at Jordan.

He was getting through the items. Jordan smiled. Please, she thought to herself, please don’t say anything!

“Are you alright, miss?” The employee squinted at Jordan. “You’re looking a bit unwell.”

No no no no. Her vision went out of focus. And when she blinked, she saw a man with a leopard’s head staring back at her.

“You on anything?” The leopard’s eyes narrowed, a growl escaping its lips.

Jordan shook her head wildly, trying to shake the sight out of her eyes. “Nuh-uh. U’m fiiine.”

Grey got in-between them and dumped a pair of soda bottles onto the counter. Placing a handful of ice cream sandwiches on there as well, she smiled. “My cousin had surgery earlier today, and they gave her a real heavy dose. I’d have recorded her saying stupid stuff for the Internet but I forgot my phone.”

“Mm.” The employee hummed. Jordan swore she heard the leopard growl again. “Alright. You take her straight home, you hear? We don’t need the police thinking she’s some meth head.”

“Of course.” Grey smiled. “Come on, cousin.”

“Fhang you.”

----

Jordan and Grey made their way to a covered bus stop and took a seat. The shelter’s walls were covered in advertisements for local businesses, giving them some privacy from everyone else.

The ice cream sandwiches helped recenter Jordan. If she didn’t move too much, the world wouldn’t spin. And if the world didn’t spin, she wouldn’t feel like emptying her guts on the pavement.

“S’good.” Jordan wasn’t slurring much anymore either. “You were pretty smooth back there.”

“I was an understudy for my school’s drama club.” Grey winked. She took a bit out of her own sandwich. “Do you remember anything?”

Jordan frowned. “I’ve figured a few things out from context clues. I left town at some point. And I didn’t stay in touch with my family. But I don’t have a lot to go on. Stupid fugue state.”

Grey scooted closer to Jordan and handed her one of the sodas. “I had a roommate who was studying to be a psychologist. She had me quiz her from her textbooks and it came up. It’s not common but it can happen.”

It was frustrating. The doctors had said her memories would come back on their own and it would only take time. But with the Lethenine she took, was that still in the cards? Or had she unknowingly cast off some core memories?

Grey seemed to know what Jordan was thinking. “Do you remember anything else? Any other clues?”

Jordan rubbed her hands against her jeans over and over. There was no harm in admitting it. Not to her, at least. “I think I’m gay. Or I really like women’s underwear.”

That got Grey to cackle, almost a full belly laugh. “I-I’m sorry, I needed that,” she wheezed between fits. Then she got a fey look in her eye. “Let’s check.”

“Wh –”

Grey had moved in, a hand planted on the back of Jordan’s head to turn her into Grey’s lips. Jordan’s eyes closed on their own accord. A gentle warmth tickled Jordan’s lips, then a soft brush swept past them and lingered.

Jordan’s eyes only opened when that feeling pulled itself away. That was when she noticed she’d leaned in and moved a hand to brace herself on the bench just past Grey’s thigh.

Never in her life had she needed something so much. “W-Well?”

Grey chuckled. “Yeah. You’re really into women’s underwear.”

That got Jordan to laugh too.