“You do. There’s a shared door between your rooms.” He pointed, and I realized the panel sticking out of the wall wasn’t actually a panel at all. There was a very tiny knob, which the bellhop turned, and the piece of the wall swung forward to reveal an aged brown door with a handle and a dead bolt. “You can, like, use this or whatever.”
He had to be joking. I wasn’t going to walk into a total stranger’s room, no matter how desperate I got for company.
“Well,” I said, waiting for him to move back toward the door. “Thanks?”
He looked at me with that hazy expression again. “I take Venmo. Or Cash App.”
Right. Right. He wanted a tip. Digging into my pocket, I pulled out the wad of cash I’d gotten from the ATM so I could tip the service people on the ferry and thumbed through it. What did bellhops make these days?
“It’s twenty-five percent,” he said.
I blinked at him. “Twenty-five percent of what?”
He rolled his eyes. “The total amount.”
“Of what? Theroom?” He was out of his fucking mind if he thought I was paying him twenty-five percent of this room cost.
“Uh. The bellhop amount, I guess.”
“That’s not a—you know what. Never mind.” I grabbed a twenty out of the stack. I would feel this kind of spend later, but it was the holidays. And even though he was an apathetic little shit, he was still here. It seemed fair.
He grunted and left without any kind of thank-you, but it was a relief to get him out of my space, so I’d consider thatmygift.
When the door shut, I walked over to the doors and slid them open. It was a hotel, so there wasn’t even the illusion of privacy, but there was a wall between my side of the duplex and the neighbor’s, so if I wanted to sit on the hammock or lounge on the beach chair, I could do it without being seen.
Taking a few steps out, I noticed wet footprints moving from the hot tub back to the neighbor’s place. Or was that two sets of footsteps? They weren’t very distinct—kind of messy, like dragging feet.
I said a small prayer it wasn’t drunk honeymooners I’d hear fucking through the walls all night. I was all for enthusiastic sex post-wedding, but I didn’t want to be an unwilling participant in that.
I closed my eyes and shook off my anxiety. Whatever was going to happen, I was going to enjoy this. I was here, away from my dull life and the fear that I was going to die alone. All I could hear were the gentle waves lapping at the shore, and it was the most soothed I’d felt in a long, long while.
“I’m here,” I murmured to myself. My voice didn’t echo back at me, and no one answered. There was no divine intervention—some burning bush telling me that I was doing the right thing. There was just the waves. And the silence that followed.
The breeze picked up a moment later, and I leaned my shoulder against the side of the patio wall, allowing myself to just feel it. It was thick and humid—a balm against my skin. Fatigue set in a moment later, and as much as I tried to fight it, darkness crept in toward the edges of my vision.
There’s no shame in sleeping now, I told myself.There’s no one here to impress. It had been a journey to get here—and not just the flight or the ferry.
A full year of silence from my family. Of being iced out. Of breaking my own heart because I knew it was the only way to be free. My wounds were still open, but with this step, it felt like maybe—just maybe—I could allow little scars to form.
Napping outside of my sleeping hours was the worst decision I could have made. I’d long since adjusted to a more normal schedule instead of the chaos hours as an EMT, so when I woke, it felt a bit like I’d been in a coma.
I peered at my phone with one blurry eye, the brightness of the screen contrasting with the fact that it was almost pitch-black in the room, and it hurt, but I could just make out the tiny numbers. Ten past eleven.
Shit.
I’d slept for almost four hours, which was going to wreak havoc on me.
Stretching my back, I rolled and planted my feet, then rushed to the bathroom to take the world’s longest piss. The moment my bladder was empty, my stomach began to make noise, and I fought back a groan because it was late.
Was the kitchen even open?
The welcome pamphlet happily informed me that there was twenty-four-hour room service. A small menu was at the very back with Caesar salads, bacon cheeseburgers, fries, omelets, and cheesecake. It was maybe the weirdest fare, something I would have loved as a stoned college student, but a burger and a salad sounded fucking heavenly.
Accepting that I would be starting the new year the way I was likely going to spend it—alone—was tough, but I’d been doing good so far.
I had Gracie and Hasan’s wedding next on the agenda, so if this vacation thing didn’t work out as far as getting my butt touched, maybe one of them would have a hot, queer cousin who’d be interested in a broke-ass teacher for the night.
I used the app to order the food as I shoved that thought away. That was a future Ryan problem, not a vacation Ryan’s. I wasn’t feeling as lonely as before. Or, at least, the loneliness wasn’t as painful now that I was here.
