After nearly forty-eight hours without a shower I definitely smelled ripe, so the first thing I did was put the shower as hot as I could get it and stepped under the spray.
Most of the room was dingy, and I was dubious about how clean things were, but the pressure of the shower was top notch and I let the boiling jet beat away all of the stiffness in my neck and back.
I scrubbed my hair three times with the cheap travel shampoo that I’d bought at one of the rest stops, eyeing the auburn strands as they were washed clean.
The box of hair dye that Wendy had given me was still buried in my backpack. I wasn’t sure at what point during my journey I should change my hair color, but given how expensive Peep had been I wasn’t sure if another motel stay would be in my future.
Resolving to dye my hair in the morning I stepped out of the shower and dried off with overly starched white towels.
Swiping my hand over the little mirror, I looked at myself for the first time in the mirror since I left New Hampshire. The woman looking back at me was pale and had bags under her eyes, but she also looked determined.
I scrubbed at the waterproof makeup on my neck, the same makeup I’d put on every day for five years, and revealed the outline of a pink dragonfly underneath.
When I turned eighteen, my mom and I got matching tattoos. It had been completely impulsive, but it was one of my favorite memories of her. Every time someone asked her about it, she proudly proclaimed that we matched.
I brought my hand up to it, tracing the wings as I thought about her. She would have been so upset about all of the things that happened after she died.
She’d raised me to be a confident, independent woman, and in turn, I’d waltzed right into the arms of a man who wanted to control me and the inheritance she’d left for me.
That inheritance was completely gone now. When Mike asked me to sign papers so he could invest and ‘double’ the money, I’d done so willingly.
I was too twitterpated by the lawyer to do much of anything else and didn’t get a second opinion.
Now, as I stood in a seedy motel bathroom prodding at one of the last pieces of my mother, I felt ashamed of myself.
Mike didn’t like the tattoo, so I put theater grade makeup on it every day despite the fact that it usually made me break out into a rash. I suppose I was lucky he never wanted to laser it off of my skin.
The desire to leave it uncovered was intense, but I ignored it for now. Not many women had the outline of a pink dragonfly tattooed onto their necks and any defining feature I could eliminate would ultimately help me.
With a sigh I pulled my pajamas on and collapsed onto the rickety bed. I’d gone through the sheets and looked all along the mattress when I first came in. I may have been down on my luck, but I refused to add bed bug bites on top of everything else.
My eyes were immediately heavy with exhaustion. I needed to eat, but now that I was horizontal all I wanted to do was sleep.
With a sigh I gave in, all of the things I needed to do could wait until tomorrow.
* * *
“Well, it’s definitely pink,” I said to myself in the mirror as I stared at my new hot pink tresses.
The side of the box hadn’t given a ‘what to expect’ when it came to red hair, so I just assumed that it would be a deeper pink. But no, when I pulled the towel off of my head, all I saw was hot pink.
I turned my head left and then right, trying to decide how I felt about it.
Meeting my own hazel eyes in the mirror, I pointed at myself. “You look hot and badass. Mike would have hated this color.”
My words made me feel instantly better about the change of my hair. If Mike wouldn’t like it, then I loved it.
After I finished brushing my new hair, I braided it and got to work covering my tattoo.
“Soon I won’t have to cover you at all,” I told the dragonfly, feeling like an absolute nutcase. Being so isolated from normal people for five years had given me the nasty habit of talking to myself. Oftentimes I would get strange looks from other shoppers at the grocery store as I debated with myself under my breath about what produce to buy.
Humming under my breath, I finished dressing and packing my bags back up. Check out time was at one, but I wanted to get on the road ASAP so it was just past nine when I dropped my keycard off at the front desk.
The guy last night told me that they served a continental breakfast, but one glance told me that the only food that they were offering were a couple of sad brown bananas and a basket of granola bars.
I grabbed a few of each anyway. Beggars couldn’t be choosers and I would need all the food I could get my hands on over the next few days.
Peep started up easily and I sent a silent thank you up to the powers above that she did. It seemed that the orc, while greasy and a little bit brusque, was good on his word about the car.
