At 1:45pm, I snuck inside the women’s restroom on the opposite end of the school’s building. It was a risky move, but this bathroom happens to only have one stall, and the main door locks from the inside. After a few moments there was a rhythmic knock at the door to the room. Two quick knocks, a pause, then four quick ones. It was the pattern I sent to her via text.

“Are you alone?” I asked her aloud.

“Of course I am. You’re the only person on my side right now.”

The response came from Gwen Diaz, who was leaning against the door to the bathroom. The message I sent to her seemed to have been effective at drawing her out. She too, wanted the game to end in Deer Valley high’s loss. It was an unpopular opinion, since no one had anything riding on our school’s loss aside from the two of us.

“So, how exactly are you going to make them lose the match? Our team is actually really good, you know. There’s a reason the basketball players get more attention than the football team.”

She wasn’t wrong, I had no doubt about that. And the huge skill gap between the two teams was an issue in itself. But thankfully, I didn’t spend the entire night while I was up twiddling my thumbs. “There’s a plastic bag in the boy’s room next to the door. Go grab it.”

“That’s gross, I’m not doing that.” She voiced her refusal to do it immediately.

“Why not?”

“I’ve never been to the men’s room in my life, and I refuse to start now. It’s probably gross as hell in there.”

“You don’t have to step inside. It’s to the left when you open the door.”

“So you left it on that disgusting floor? What is wrong with you?”

“Dude, the stuff in the bag is probably fine. Look, just-”

The sound of a knock against the door silenced me immediately. After a moment of silence, the sound of footsteps began to approach the door.

“Um, excuse me. Can I get through?” A feminine voice called out to Gwen on the other side. Judging by the lack of confidence in their voice, it could have easily been a sophomore or a freshman.

“Uh, it’s occupied honey. You think I’m standing here as some kind of fashion statement?”

“Oh.”

Silence enveloped the other side of the door. No talking, but no footsteps. It seemed as if the girl decided that she would be waiting her turn to get inside.

“Uhm, what are you doing?” Gwen asked.

“I’m… waiting to get in.”

“Yeah, no you aren’t. There’s like a million restrooms in this school. Go use one of those.”

“But…”

“What, do I have to spell it out for you? You’re like, so fucking annoying. Just leave me alone already.”

The girl said nothing in response. The sound of footsteps receding from the hallway was the only thing leftover after Gwen’s ruthless verbal lashing. And after a few moments, even that disappeared into the nothingness.

“She’s gone,” Gwen said as if she had just gotten done swatting a fly.

“You’re kind of mean, you know that?”

“Shut up. You’re the dumb fuck who wanted to have this conversation in public. You know that, right? We could’ve just done this over the phone. What, did you see this in a James Bond movie then decide to try it out? This is so fucking embarrassing for you. I would literally kill myself if I were you, because Christ.”

“Will you just go get the bag already before someone else comes along?”

“Okay, but if I see a single cockroach then I’m coming in there to beat the shit out of you.”

“There’s no roaches in the men’s room…”

I had never spoken to Gwen before this as far as I can remember. But her willingness to denigrate me so casually said a lot about her personality. If it weren’t for her desperation to stop the two of them from dating, I don’t think she would’ve given me even a second thought.

After a few moments, she returned alongside the rustling sound of the plastic bag.

“So what’s in this thing? Should I take a look?”

“Yeah, it’s yours.” The sound of the rustling picked up as she reached inside to grab the items I had placed inside.

“A bottle of melatonin.”

“Don’t go over 5mg obviously, but you want to get it to them sometime before the game begins. It takes about thirty minutes to kick in.”

“So your solution is to spike their drinks with sleeping pills?”

“It’s a supplement, not a sleeping pill.”

“Oh, right. Yeah, that makes me feel better about it.”

“What, do you have a better idea?”

I thought about it carefully, and there really was no better idea than this. I wanted to avoid injuring myself repeatedly if possible. Harming a single player would be one thing, but to damage the entire team at once would be nearly impossible. Besides, taking control of their body away to do something like that would give them a hint about the existence of Dream Paralysis.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The best solution would be to spike as many of their drinks as possible in order to safely reduce the team’s overall performance. And on the off chance that they still performed well, then I could fall back on hacking them during the game to disrupt them in the moment. I doubted that they’d notice anything in that groggy state.

“This isn’t going to work.” Gwen sighed, as if she had just wasted her time. “How am I supposed to get anywhere near their drinks without them seeing me?”

“You could swap them out.”

“Huh? Swap them?”

“For example, if Ben’s drinking a specific brand of energy drink, all you’d have to do is buy yourself a can at the vending machine, spike it with the melatonin, then swap them quickly while no one’s looking.”

She paused to think for a moment. “I guess that could work. But…”

“But?”

“I’m not using my money.”

“Huh?”

“Give me some money or this isn’t happening.”

“Seriously?”

“I’m taking the risk here, you know. I shouldn’t be the one paying for the drinks too.”

“It’s my plan though? You’d still be pacing back and forth like a lost child if it weren’t for me.”

“Yeah? You want me to go tell Ben about this whole plan and just blow it up over your face?”

“If you do that you’ll definitely regret it.”

“Oh, really? And why’s that?”

“Because I’ll kill him.”

“What the fuck?”

She must have thought that I was joking. Even for a bluff that was too much of an exaggeration. “Are you seriously going to threaten to kill someone over 20 dollars?”

“No, I’m going to threaten to kill Ben if you try to sabotage my plan.”

“That’s...”

“What, wrong? Are you really going to pretend you haven’t thought about killing someone who tried to take him from you before? Or are your feelings for Ben just that shallow?”

Words that sounded nothing like myself came out of my mouth. But they felt right. They felt like they would turn the entire situation in my favor. And so, I let them out without an ounce of anxiety or hesitation. If this is the path I needed to take to stop her from doing anything crazy, then I would do it.

“I’m not trying to threaten you into doing what I want here. You’re free to walk away. But if you ever talk about this, then I’ll have nothing to lose anymore. Maybe I won’t do something as crazy as killing anyone, but I can guarantee that your life will become a living hell.”

It’s a threat that carries a different weight when my willingness to drug the entire basketball team is taken into account.

“You’re insane...”

“If that bothers you then you’re free to leave and enjoy watching Benjamin and Zoey from the sidelines.”

After a brief pause, as if she were mulling over the words I’d offered her, I heard her sigh from the other side of the door. She must have finally grasped the situation the two of us were in. This feeling inside of us, our burning desires for that member of the opposite sex, it was controlling us. Propelling us forward without a care for things like the potential consequences of failing. The time for a sane solution had left us long ago.

I slipped a twenty dollar bill under the door.

"If you really want me to then I’ll pay.” She paused for a moment, then spoke up.

“I’m not touching that.”

“Why not?”

“It’s gross.”

“What? Just take it.”

“Never mind, I don’t want it. I’ll use my own money.”

“You do realize that all money is dirty, right?”

“I deal with it because I have to. What I won’t deal with is money that I know for a fact has been on the floor of a public restroom.”

“Slide it back in then.”

“No.” This woman was pressing buttons that Zoey couldn’t reach even if she tried.

“Fine. Suit yourself.”

The two of us paused, then I spoke up. “You can do this, right?”

“I’ll see what I can do. At the very least, I’ll get Ben to drink it.”

“Ben? Why him?”

“He’s our big scorer. Do you know nothing about our team?”

I didn’t, but I decided not to answer. She sighed in frustration.

“You’re Tristan, right?” She called me out by name, but I was oddly calm about it. The lack of sleep must have been affecting my brain.

“What makes you say that?”

“Ben thinks Tristan’s the reason Zoey broke up with him. I thought she did it because I asked her to, but it’s not like I convinced her or anything. She gave up almost too easily. It’s like she had already made up her mind to do it. So if we assume Ben is right, then that’s the only person I can think of that could be trying to undermine their relationship.”

She was exactly right. It seemed like distancing myself from Zoey was becoming difficult thanks to our initial contact that day. No matter how privately our meetups became afterwards, people were still drawing a line between us because of what happened that day.

“So, what are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing. I just want to know why. Do you like Zoey or something?”

Ordinarily, a question like that would knock me off kilter. But I felt strangely calm that day. I had no idea what it was, but I decided to just answer her honestly.

“I like her body.”

My response seemed to take her off guard. She clicked her teeth in frustration then turned away. “You know, of all the dirty things in the world, whether its old money, bathroom floors, or cockroaches, filthy people like you disgust me the most.”

I didn’t answer her. Those were her own feelings, so there was no point in debating her out of them. I didn’t answer her, of course, but I also didn’t blame her for seeing it that way. Of course she couldn’t understand. She was still living in denial about her relationship with Benjamin. She still believed that, somewhere down the road, a happy ending existed where the two of them would continue loving each other forever. But the truth of it was, if she only accepted reality, and accepted the fact that he would never love her again, then maybe she would truly understand where I was coming from.

If my choices are between a purely physical romance and that painful loneliness, then of course I’d choose the former. I refused to allow myself to be disparaged by a woman who lives in a fantasy world. But the truth of it was, as someone in the same boat as me, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.

“You can leave now. If you need anything else, let me know, but make sure you delete our text history.”

“Whatever.” She dug the sole of her shoe into the ground then walked off, the pattering of her footsteps receding down the hall. Once they had disappeared, I waited one minute, then two minutes, then three, before I finally popped out of the girl’s restroom. Once outside, I was greeted by the face of a younger female student. It appeared as if she had been waiting around for a while.

“Um…” Her familiar voice was the one that had spoken to Gwen earlier. She had returned to the scene of the crime.

“I found this at the door…” She lifted up the twenty-dollar bill that Gwen refused to touch.

“Oh, that’s your payment. Take it.”

I had an underclassman I found double check to see if Gwen really was alone. The entire issue with doing that over the phone would have been the possibility of eavesdroppers. By having the conversation here alone, I could guarantee that information wouldn’t leak out.

“There was no one besides her around, right?”

“No, she was standing there by herself. I also checked all of the classrooms nearby…” Her voice trailed off, and she looked to her left and her right before continuing to speak.

“Are you two dating?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know, I just thought that she was really rude, but I didn’t want to badmouth your girlfriend.”

“Oh that, don’t worry about it. She’s on edge because she has a difficult job to do today.”

“Job? Oh, because she’s a cheerleader.”

“Yeah, something like that.” I slung my backpack over my shoulders. “Anyway, thanks for keeping lookout. Don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

She didn’t respond initially, but she fidgeted for a moment. “Um, what’s your name?”

“Travis.”

“Travis…”

She wouldn’t know what I looked like under all of this. My sunglasses covered my eyes, the medical mask covered my nose and mouth, and the baseball cap covered my hair. The rest of my body was layered with baggy clothing, so she would be a little hard-pressed to get an exact read on my physique. By offering her a fake name, I could assume that this would be the last that she saw of me.

“I’ll see you around then.”

In that moment, as I turned around to leave, I wondered when it was that I became this confident when talking to girls. I remembered being a blabbering idiot talking to Zoey just a few days ago. One thing was for sure; the uncertain, neurotic mess that was Tristan Collins was gone. Born from the ashes was a new me, with one singular goal in mind. And I wasn’t planning on losing out to an obsessive lunatic with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.