Crap. I forgot to tell Kruger which motel to go to before I passed out. Oh well, I can spend the night here, check out in the morning, and head to the place I booked. And that way, Kruger won’t know where I am. Liking this plan, I look around the room, which I can see a little better thanks to the moonlight. I walk over to the bedside table and turn on the lamp. I squint, but the warm glow isn’t nearly as bad as the main light would have been.
I take it all in and wonder how much this room is going to set me back. It’s much larger than the one I booked and has more creature comforts. There is a large light oak closet on the far wall, with a long dresser butted up against it. Across from that is a desk in the same light oak as the rest of the furniture. A readingchair in a soft gray sits next to the window beside me, with a chunky yellow knitted throw laid over the arm. I can imagine curling up in the chair, pulling the blanket over me to ward off the chill, and losing myself in a book.
I shake my head to clear it, regretting the move immediately. I blow out a steady breath so I don’t puke and continue taking in the room. The floor-standing lamp is just behind the chair, and the rug, just in front of it, is a riot of pastel colors leading to the bed that dominates most of the room. The bedding is a soft dove-like gray, with white sheets, and another yellow knitted throw is lying across the foot of it. As I walk toward the bed, I notice buttons on the footrest. I press one and feel my eyes widen when a television rises out from the footboard.
“Fancy,” I whisper, wondering if I should just leave now, though despite my nap, exhaustion still weighs heavily on me.
I leave the TV and walk gingerly to the door that’s ajar, leading to the bathroom. I don’t turn the light on, but I can see enough to make out a tub, shower, toilet, and sink with a large mirror above it. A basket sits beside the tub, full of rolled-up towels, and a similar, smaller one sits next to the toilet with toilet paper inside it.
A hamper made of the same woven seagrass material is beside the sink, waiting for dirty laundry to fill it. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one in a motel before, though. A wave of wariness washes over me, and for the first time since I woke up, it occurs to me that something isn’t quite right here.
Catching sight of my reflection distracts me. I move toward the mirror and take everything in. I haven’t looked in a mirror since before the incident. I figured if it were as bad as I was imagining, I’d rather not know. Cowardly, perhaps, but there was also a little bit of self-preservation. I knew I’d reached my limit of what I could handle.
Now, though, after weeks of healing, I still looked…like I’d been in an explosion. My face is bordering on gaunt. The circles under my eyes are dark, and the gash just below my hairline stands out even in the dark room. The stitches have been removed, but I’d been warned about the scarring. It’s not as bad as I’d imagined, though. To be fair, I imagined looking something like the Crypt Keeper, so the bar was set pretty low.
My hair is limp and greasy, lying flat against my head, clearly in need of washing. My T-shirt and sweatpants hang off my frame. I’ve always been a curvy girl. The only time my weight dropped was when my emotional trauma was bigger than my appetite. This time, it was a lack of edible food. Whatever the hospital was serving, I wouldn’t give to my dog if I had one. What I did eat, I struggled to keep down, thanks to the puking. Thankfully, anti-nausea pills had helped with that, but constantly being in pain and the relentless lethargy had sunk my appetite to nothing. And my body too. The whole thing reminds me of those heroin chic models from the early nineties. It wasn’t sexy then, and it sure as shit isn’t sexy now.
“Okay, note to self. Eat more carbs.”
Usually, I’m all tits and ass. But right now, the curves I hated as a teenager and learned to embrace as I got older have virtually disappeared. My reflection looks like an impostor wearing my skin.
That’s enough of that. I pee, wash my hands, and splash some water on my face before heading back to the bedroom in search of painkillers. If I feel up to it later, I might take a soak in the tub before I have to leave tomorrow.
I don’t see my bag anywhere, so I open the closet, expecting to find it there. Instead, I find my clothes hanging up. I stare at them, confused for a minute, before I open one of the dresser drawers and again find myself looking at neatly folded T-shirts that belong to me. Stuff that wasn’t in my hospital bag.
“What the hell?” I open all the drawers, and each is filled with my things—stuff that I know for a fact I left at my dad’s place. I didn’t have much. Most of the things I owned had gone up in flames. Again. But I’d purchased the necessities.
I hurry back to the bathroom and flip on the light this time, wincing at how bright it is. My toothbrush is sitting in a tumbler next to the sink with a new tube of toothpaste. Bending down, I open the cupboards under the sink and find my favorite brands of shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel inside, along with the brand of tampons I use.
Getting to my feet, I rub my hand over my face, trying to puzzle the pieces together. My headache has turned from a dull ache into a warning siren, and I can’t focus on much beyond that. If I don’t get some pain relief soon, I’ll throw up, and that will make things ten times worse.
I stagger to the bedroom door and turn the handle, pulling the door open with a creak. I look down the hallway for the nearest exit, and curse when one of the puzzle pieces slips into place.
This isn’t a motel room, it’s someone’s house. I swallow and creep down the hall, past the closed doors on either side of me, and grab hold of the banister. I grip it tightly as I slowly make my way downstairs, not trusting my legs to hold me up for much longer.
By the time I make it to the bottom, I’m sweating like a pig heading to slaughter. My legs are shaking so badly, I have to sit on the bottom step to catch my breath. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths before jolting with a gasp when I hear my name.
“Delphi? What the fuck? Are you hurt? Do I need to take you back to the hospital? What can I do? What do you need?” Kruger bends down in front of me and grabs my hands as he fires off question after question.
“My pills,” I manage to get out, feeling nausea swirl in my gut again.
“Shit, hold on, baby, I’ll be right back.”
Baby? What the hell?
I don’t overthink it. I’ve spent far too much time trying to figure out men. They’re an impossible equation to solve, like string theory or folding a fitted sheet. It’s easier to accept that men are the glitches in the matrix and move on than to try to understand them.
I don’t know how long I sit there, minutes or hours, before Kruger is back. He gently palms the back of my head and calls my name softly.
“Open your mouth, Delphi. Good girl.”
“Sounds like a dirty dream I once had,” I whisper, which earns me a chuckle.
“Stick out your tongue.”
“Now you’re just fucking with me.” But I do as he asks and feel him place a couple of pills in my mouth. I feel a glass pressed against my lips. He tips it up a little until I have a mouthful before he places his lips next to my ear and murmurs, “Swallow for me.”
This motherfucker.
