Night Terror

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

He’d hoped a good night’s sleep would fix it, but when Sean woke Thursday morning he was just as blank about the past few months as he’d been last night. He turned on the lamp, rolled over, and stared at the length of yellow light across his ceiling. How was it possible to have lost the past few months? He didn’t even know if this had happened to him before. He couldn’t remember it happening before. But then, anything could have happened in the past few months without him knowing.

He checked the date and time on his phone. He was up in time for his morning routine, but Sean had lost most of the semester. He remembered the beginning week or so, and then—nothing. Now it was well into November and he barely knew who his students were.

The alarm beeped again and he turned it off properly this time, forced himself out of bed and into the shower. Last night had been strange—he’d woken up on the couch, having dozed off in the middle of looking through papers, and was glad now he was very good with notes and lesson plans. Obviously he’d been doing the work this entire time, he just…had no memory of it.

Sean didn’t want to call his doctor. When he was finished with his shower he put make Dr. appt down on his schedule for next week. He wanted to give himself a few days to see if his memories came back, and Sean didn’t want to think too hard about what would happen if they didn’t. He couldn’t be getting dementia yet, right? He was only turning forty in January. He stared at himself hard in the mirror after shaving, trying to see into his eyes what had happened. It only made him frustrated.

“Screw it,” he muttered to himself, and went down to the kitchen to grab coffee and reheat some breakfast quiche. He had his lesson plans for the day. He could get by.

“Screw whoever you are, too,” he said to his phone. He’d kept the texts from last night—he didn’t know why he hadn’t deleted them, maybe to prove to himself in the morning they were real, and the more he could prove his mind was working, the better he felt. But Sean glared at the words now, irritated with this mystery person, too. Probably a student wanting to mess with him. Who else would call him an asshole? He’d have to figure out how his number got out and change his phone.

The students, it turned out, were easy to fool. His coworkers, much less so. Abby English, the calculus professor he liked to chat with during midmorning coffee, ended up staring at him weirdly when he mentioned her cat.

“You okay today, Sean?” she asked. She kept the concern from her brown face, but her eyes were full of it. “Oskar died at the beginning of the semester.”

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, and looked sadly at his empty mug. He should have gone down to the Campus Jo and taken his chances with the students. No, he should have left campus altogether. “I should’ve—it’s been a rough day.”

“Something happen?” asked Abby.

Sean trusted her with things he didn’t tell other people, but he wasn’t comfortable mentioning his memory loss yet, not even to her. Not if maybe it would go away. He could pretend it never happened. If he said anything to her now, she might keep an eye on him and he was too young for that.

“Didn’t sleep well,” said Sean, shaking his head. “It’s been a long week.”

“I’ll say. Yesterday, I had a disgruntled parent call me. That was fun to deal with.”

Sean listened to her story, apologized again about Oskar the cat, and definitely did not show up in the third-floor break room on Friday. Since he had a bit of time until his next class, he decided to get away, off campus at least. He didn’t care to run into anyone at the nearby coffee shops, so he picked the place the farthest away and the least likely to have any coworkers. Students he could handle. Also, the place had good sweets, and Sean loved whatever sugar he could get away with.

Crypt Coffee was a weird place. The entrance to the building was small and shaped like a mausoleum, which made a little sense considering directly beyond the place lay the Old Blue Cemetery. Inside there were chairs and tables for people who weren’t comfortable lingering underground, and stairs and an elevator to take customers down to where they ordered their coffees. Sean always wondered how rich a person had to be to build something this involved—the coffee prices were comparable to anywhere else.

He ordered boring regular coffee with a shovel—this business’ way of adding an espresso shot—and a slice of chocolate mint zebra pie, which sounded like just the thing he needed right now.

“Dane’ll take the pie out to you,” said the barista when he passed over Sean’s coffee.

Sean stared at him.

“Dane?” If this was some student at a part time job…

“Yeah, the owner? Guy who tries to creep out people like you?”

“Like me,” said Sean, unimpressed.

“Business professionals,” said the barista, and turned to the next customer. Sean took his coffee to an empty table and sat in the coffin-styled bench, forcing back annoyance. He was very aware it was mostly a younger crowd here at Crypt Coffee, for the aesthetics, but the way the barista had said “business professionals” bothered him. Made him feel old, stuck up. And right now, with his mind blanking out on him, Sean didn’t want to be reminded of his age. He pulled out his phone and checked the weather for the weekend.

“Slice of zebra.”

A clatter accompanied the voice as a plate was slammed onto the table, causing Sean to jump. He looked up, right into the eyes of Dane, the owner of Crypt Coffee, and felt a jolt. The man—tanned white skin, tattoos, muscles, dark hair—was giving him a look that mingled grumpiness with flirting, and something else Sean couldn’t identify.

“Thanks,” he said, unsure what to do with the fact Dane didn’t leave immediately. Sean was sure life was always busy for an owner. “Looks good.” He picked up the fork, took a bite. Chocolate and mint, rich like ganache, melted over his tongue.

“Nice,” said Dane.

The moment Sean realized Dane was admiring his expression, he tightened it. Sean had been enjoying the pie too much.

“Always like to see how much customers appreciate my recipes.”

“You made this?”

“Yeah, thanks, asshole,” said Dane. He put his palms on the table and leaned forward. “Maybe I made it just for you.”

Sean decided what the barista meant was that Dane tried to flirt his older men away. Which was a shame for him, because Sean wasn’t uninterested. At all. Dane was good-looking, if a bit on the young side, but definitely solidly into his twenties. And Sean could feel himself hyper-aware of his skin now, his pulse. Losing several months almost made him want to do something poorly thought out, almost made him want to give Dane his number and tell him when he was free. The fear that he was losing his mind already, at this age, made Sean much bolder than he knew he’d otherwise be. Because if it was this bad already, how long did he have?

And there was still that something in Dane’s gaze he couldn’t place. At worst, he’d surprise and offend Dane. At best, Sean could get laid. He didn’t think he had much more to lose at the moment.

“Dane,” he said, and leaned in toward the man’s face. Dane’s expression flashed surprise, but he didn’t back down. “Weird, that name’s been coming up recently. I’m thinking of taking it as a sign.”

“Yeah, a friggin’ bad one.”

“You saying you’re bad?” For a moment Sean actually hoped the Dane who had contacted him was this Dane and he’d already done the groundwork, slept with him, maybe—but that couldn’t be. It didn’t make sense that Dane would pretend nothing was going on between them if they’d already hooked up. And he’d probably have something to say about Sean telling him to delete his number. No, this was a different Dane.

This Dane smiled a little.

“Yeah, I’m saying I’m bad.”

“Good,” said Sean, and for a second Dane looked like he’d back down. Instead he laughed.

“Unfuckingbelievable. You’re how old?”

That hurt. Sean felt his confidence falter somewhat. But Dane, after all, had started it.

“Your barista mentioned you like older men.”

“I like making them uncomfortable.” Dane leaned away from the table.

Sean’s heart sank. He pulled out a pen, pulled over a napkin.

“The hell are you doing?”

“Giving you something I don’t give to just anyone.”

Dane actually looked wounded. Sean hoped he wasn’t somehow straight after all those signals—more likely he just wasn’t expecting to run into someone who’d follow his flirting to its logical conclusion. Well, if he was curious, Sean was interested. He’d noticed no trace of a significant other in the few days since he’d lost his memory, and no one had tried to contact him. He felt free enough to give out his number.

“I…can’t take that,” said Dane, and crossed his arms, and scowled. Sean finished writing the numbers out anyway.

“Then I’ll leave it here for the next person to find. Maybe he’ll be interested.”

“Oh, f**k you, professor,” said Dane, and stalked off.

Sean took a drink of coffee, a bite of pie. He couldn’t tell whether it was weird or not Dane knew he was a professor. He’d been in a few times with papers before the memory loss, and it was possible he’d been back. But Dane’s behavior indicated Sean hadn’t pressed the flirting before.

Well, Sean was going through a rough time. Maybe he should spend the weekend in, at home. There was a chance of snow, and not much of it had fallen this year yet. Nobody on the roads seemed able to handle the first few snows of the year. And he had exams yet to grade, the leaves to rake up in the backyard… Maybe going through some normal chores or old memories would help shake loose the last few months. He wasn’t thrilled with the idea of actually having to talk to his doctor about this.

He still left the napkin when he finished his pie and went back to campus.