When I’m done, I turn off the water, rip the curtain to the side, hang my hands around the curtain rod and stare blankly ahead. And unfortunately, I catchanother glance of myself in the mirror and it’s the worst fucking reminder in the world that the person I’m really running from is the one person I’ll never be able to escape. He’s always staring right back at me like a ghost of the life I want to forget.
The life Ineedto forget.
I exit the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my body. A fifty-dollar bill sits on the bed. I grab a pack of matches off the nightstand, grab the money off the bed, and step back into the bathroom. One strike of a match against the strip and it erupts into a tiny flame, emitting a heavy smog of acrid heat. I angle the money over the flame and watch as it ignites.
Everything I touch burns, either because I myself am the match or because everyone who’s ever claimed to love me has doused me with their lies. I’m an arsonist, hellbent on torching the world the way it has always burned me.
Daylight isn’t a friend of mine. The bright light makes it impossible to hide and all too easy to be seen. The mid-afternoon sun on the skin of my arm burns as I make my way past the algae-filled pool of the motel with an unlit cigarette dangling from my lips. Everything I currently own is packed in a rugged brown bag that’s slung over my right shoulder. It’s not lost on methat I’ve fallen from grace, back into the same kind of cesspits I grew up in. I’m gay Cinderella with a twist—from rags to riches to rags again. Also, Cinderella was a saint and I’m a trauma-stained whore.
A bell rings as I swing open the front door of the office. There’s nobody behind the counter at first, but a middle-aged woman with tight curls enters from the backroom and plasters a fake smile on her face.
“Do you need a lighter?” she asks.
“I don’t smoke.”
“There’s a cigarette in your mouth.”
“It’s a comfort thing.” I retrieve the cigarette from my mouth and stick it behind one ear. “I used to smoke, but it’s one of many bad habits I’m trying to break and this makes me feel like I’m smoking without the risk of cancer.”
If I’m going to die, I’m not going to die from lung cancer. It’s a horrible way to go out. Mama smoked until she couldn’t smoke anymore. Knew it was killing her and kept on smoking anyway. Addiction is like a speeding car without brakes on a curvy mountainous road. There’s an emergency brake, but when we’re in freefall, we never think to pull it. The only thing that can save us is a divine act of intervention.
Pushing my husband down the stairs was that divine intervention.
“So what do you need, honey?”
“I need to use your phone and beforeyou ask any questions, I don’t have one. If I did, I wouldn’t be asking to use yours. No, I didn’t lose it somewhere. No, I haven’t forgotten to pay my bill, and I didn’t drop it in that nasty pit someone probably calls a pool.”
She stares at me while pushing the landline phone from her side of the desk to mine. I give her a nod of appreciation as I dial a number I’ve now memorized and wait for someone to answer.
My heart races as I steel myself for the possibility that I’m not going to get the news I’m hoping for.
A voice answers, soft, feminine, and familiar. “Wilcott General Hospital, how may I help you today?”
“I’m checking up on a patient,” I say while the motel attendant pretends to not listen, but she’s angled in just the right way that I have my suspicions. I turn away from her and look out the glass door as a car pulls up front.
“I would love to help you with that. What is the patient’s name?”
“Kevin Richards,” I say, gravel in my throat. His name passing from my lips is enough to send me into a tailspin. With my free hand, I reach for the cigarette and place it back between my lips.
“Can you please provide your name and relationship to the patient?”
“Kevin Richards Jr., and he’s my father.”
“Let me just check something. Do you mind if I place you on a brief hold?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.” I take a puff of the unlit cigarette while watching a tall man get out of the car out front. Dark skin, a faded cut, a nose ring, and light blue jeans tight enough to take my mind elsewhere. Makes my cock twitch and my jeans tighter around it.
The voice on the line stabs at my ear. “I’m sorry, Mr. Richards, but I cannot provide any information over the phone about the patient as there are restrictions on file.”
That’s all the information I need. I pass the phone back to the attendant, but can faintly hear the receptionist babbling on about something until the phone finally clicks.
The sorry bastard is still alive. Bad news for him and even worse news for me. Moments like these are the moments when I find myself buried balls deep in some stranger or impaled on some stranger’s dick.
The bell rings above the door as it swings open. The man—a perfect stranger—offers a polite smile as he walks past me, and my imagination runs wild; raw-dogging him from behind while he lies face-first on the hood of his sports car. But then I realize there’s a woman in the passenger seat, and I’m back to reality.
On the run again, and besides, I never stay in the same place for too long.
I make my way back to my car—a burnt burgundy Challenger from the 1970s that’s faded from the sun, chipped from the passing of time, and rusted around the trim.
