“So, you’re a hypocrite,” she said, taking another gulp of vodka. “What else is new?”
There was still time to change it, but why should she? Her mother was a good person who was going to get locked in a prison of her own body before she died. Fuck health. Fuck justice. Life was what happened today. Everything else was imaginary.
Cheryl shoved the vodka back into the glove compartment and opened the car door. She stepped into the night air, bringing her handbag with her. Pulling it to her chest, she walk-ran past motel doors, counting numbers. She could hear other visitors talking and laughing and watching TV. The walls had to be paper thin. Everyone was going to hear her and Patrick together. But why did that matter? This motel was gross, she was gross, and she was making Patrick gross. They could all be gross together.
Room twenty-three was in the corner of the motel, pulsing with heavy trap music. Listening to it, Cheryl could taste her heartbeat. She knocked, but too quietly, the sound absorbed by the bass. Someone should have told Patrick to knock it off already, but it wasn’t that kind of place.
She hesitated. What was he wearing in there? A suit? Sweatpants? Nothing?
Then the door swung open.
Patrick’s thick hair had been cut. It was the first thing she noticed—his newly cropped sides—along with the fact he’d been drinking. His eyes were slightly scrunched, lending a wolfish look to his usually boyish face. He seemed older. Older and a million times meaner. He was wearing nice jeans and a navy polo. Daywear, like the two of them were going to Sunday lunch. Why would he have done that?
“In,” he said, jerking a thumb at the suite.
Cheryl stumbled into the room. It was small; just a spongy-looking bed and a desk lit by a dangling bulb. She clocked an open bottle of Chivas on the floor. Patrick hardly drank anything except beer, but she guessed it was going to be a night of extremes.
He closed the door and flipped the latch, the sound making her squirm. She clung to her handbag, unsure of what to do or say or think.
“Drink?” Patrick said, picking up the Chivas.
“Um, no thanks.”
He took a swig, watching her like he could see right through her clothes.
“You wore that outfit when you came to my house for my twenty-first birthday,” he said, his voice oddly flat. “I was sick, and when I opened the door, I thought you were an angel.”
Cheryl looked down at her outfit. “I don’t…”
“Of course, you don’t remember. Why would you? Put your bag on the floor.”
Shaking, she walked to the desk and spotted an unopened box of condoms. Her heart flipped over. Had he bought them just for her or…?
“Ever had a serious boyfriend, Cheryl?”
She whipped around. Patrick was sitting on the edge of the bed, bottle dangling between his knees. His expression was neutral, pleasant, but something in his eyes made her skin prickle. “I… Yes.”
“Who?”
Cheryl hesitated, but she could feel the car vodka pulsing through her. If this was the end, why shouldn’t she tell him? “His name was Carlo.”
Patrick tilted his head to the side. “How’d it go?”
She smiled, though nothing about her time with Carlo was funny. “Do you have all night?”
“No.”
“Then it just went badly.”
“Why?”
“He… wasn’t a nice person.”
“He fuck you good though?”
Shock went through her like an earthquake. She stared at Patrick, waiting for him to explain. He raised his brows. “Did he?”
Cheryl placed her ELK bag on the desk beside the condoms. “I… He was fine.”
