Page 29 of Inception

“I’m meeting Dominic Huntington tonight,” I blurted out, hoping that might quell his suspicions, and then cringed inwardly for trying so hard. Why did I even feel the need to defend myself?

Zane’s eyes rounded out with delight at the revelation but quickly evaporated into something else as he eyed Paula. She flicked her salad back and forth with her fork, her expression obscured in thought, before she pushed the plate away.

“Excuse me,” she said as she slipped off her stool and walked off towards the back. I could have sworn I saw a tear fashioning in the corner of her eye.

I looked at Zane. “Did I say something wrong?”

He leaned in across the bar as though there were prying ears all around us. “She used to go with him.”

“Go with Dominic?” I recoiled. “Go with him where?”

His eyes peeked up at the ceiling. “Gowith him,” he repeated suggestively. “As in she used todatehim.” He shook his head in pity. “Poor girl had it bad, too.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. They were damn near on fire. How long did they date? Was it serious? Did theysleeptogether? I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear any of it.

“What happened with them?” I asked, despite myself.

“He dogged her out, that’s what. Dropped her like last season’s Pradas.”

“But I thought he just moved back here?” Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe he was talking about another Dominic Huntington. Okay so it wasn’t likely, but itwaspossible.

“He did,” he said as he pushed off the counter and returned to the cash register. “They moved fast.”

“Oh.”Gross.

I changed my mind. I didn’t want to hear this anymore.

“My breaks over,” I said as I grabbed our plates off the bar. “Later, Zane.”

“Laters, Jem.”

I rushed off to the back, putting as much distance between myself and that conversation as I physically could.

The hours passed by slightly disjointed, and for good reason. My head was sort of all over the place yet nowhere in particular. I felt tired, and under the weather, likebelow sea level, and while I initially just chalked it up to the surprise of finding out about Paula and Dominic, as time wore on, things seemed to go from bad to worse, and I quickly realized it had nothing to do with either one of them.

I was standing in the back storeroom looking for the paper napkins when it happened. It was as though a sudden surge of tiny needles began blitzing my skin and when I looked up around me, the entire room had become animated in an unnatural way, similar to what you’d see in the skewed mirrors of a Funhouse.

The melting walls and flashing black dots were the last thing I saw before I hit the ground.

In truth, it only felt like I was out for a split second, but I had no real way of knowing for sure. When I came to, I was face down on a cold tile with an open box of paper napkins scattered on the floor around me. The seconds felt like minutes, and it took forever for the room to slow its rotation long enough for me to regain my balance and stagger back into a seating position, my back planted firmly against the wall like an anchor.

Even still, my stomach wrenched and my head pounded harder than the bass line of a hundred tribal drums. I could feel my skin was clammy, and heated, crawling with uncomfortable, tingling sensations, and I knew I was far from out of the woods.

The door burst open as Trace came barreling through it, his usual controlled expression overtaken by concern.

“I’m fine,” I said as he rushed over to me. My voice had surprised even me. It sounded far too shaky and weak to be mine.

“You don’t look fine,” he said as he bent down and scooped me up off the floor and into his arms.

I didn’t have the strength to fight him off. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. Instead, I just wrapped my arm around his neck and resigned myself as he carried me out of the storeroom and into the private employee washroom.

“What happened? Did you black out?”

“I don’t know,” I said dimly as he placed me down onto the chair. He grabbed a hand towel from the cupboard and turned on the facet, soaking it under the cold running water.

I could see his expression through the mirror, his face stirring with an array of emotions I couldn’t quite decipher.

He returned to my side with the wet towel in his hand and bent down on the tiled floor before me. The fact that this was the second time that Trace Macarthur was kneeling down at my feet did not escape me.

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