Daily writing prompt

What are your future travel plans?

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*This is a SFW work of fiction, an excerpt from a longer backstory piece, as told from the perspective of Judy Perez (click for #Judy).
Click here to read the whole story, Fever Dream of Fervor
WARNING! Links NSFW!

I don’t know, I don’t… I don’t have any travel plans. Not right now. Probably not for a while. At the moment, I’m focusing on being back home in Salinas and getting back into a normal routine. Since I’m on paid leave, at least for now, I’ve been breaking out my old rave fits tucked in the back of my closet at Sandra’s and getting back into the underground hypnotrance scene. The clothes don’t fit like they used to; Parts of me are squishing out in spots they never did before. But the raves I loved so much in my college years fit like a glove. I’ve reconnected with a few friends since I’ve been home and, well, partied.

That’s me. Right now. Living the present. Everything that came before that? That’s what I’m trying to distract myself from, trying not to think about. Because my pain box is still tiny and that fucking ball keeps bouncing around inside, hitting that button that makes me weep into my pillow at 3:00AM. I hate what happened. It’s stuck in my mind, thick like molasses and nothing I can do will wash it out. It has me reaching for my phone every time it buzzes and it’s making my heart ache when the silence in the room becomes too loud. No, I don’t know where I’m going.

But I can at least tell you about my last big trip. Might as well. I haven’t told anyone else yet. Not even Mom. But I need to tell someone…

I’m a biologist. And I’d been on an island for research work, Isla Guadalupe, 241 km from land and nowhere. That’s about 150 miles mind you, but by the way of San Diego port where we shipped in and out from, it was more like twice that. I arrived there nearly half a year ago. And things were going just fine, perfect even. Right up till the end. Right up til the Hosa Center of Research and Biology sent a boat for me under the guise of an early resupply of resources to stockpile at the outpost. It was also under the radar that it brought along with it my replacement, a man I knew casually from the research center. I was glad I’d said my goodbyes to Evie the night before because things got real awkward once Paul arrived. But I’d bid them both a good luck and a farewell and gotten on that platform supply ship. Twenty hours later, I was crashing in my studio loft near Cortez Hill with a hole in my chest and a pile of my personal belongings heaped in the corner.

That’s the short story. But it’s everything that happened between that matters most to me.