Page 224 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

He knocks again.

“Sonny, open the door.”

No, I wanna say.

But I'm supposed to be mute.

My lungs go tight, and my tears still fall despite me not breathing.

“C’mon, I ain’t goin’ away. I let you cry alone once. I’m not doin’ that again,” he says over the TV screaming in the background. “If you don’t let me in, I’m sleeping outside this door. And if I hear one cry in there? I’ll tear this whole fuckin’ buildin’ apart to get inside and put you back together.”

I pull the crewneck over my face,

lungs sore from how stupid I feel.

All because of the belief that I need her Cream of Wheat to make it through another week without her.

Then I hear his body drop against the wall next to the door, his shadow spilling under it.

I smother the sound behind cupped hands as I cry, ugly, heated, wet, tears soaking the neckline and falling soundless.

Minutes pass.

Three of them, ten.

I don’t know.

At some point, I melt to the floor

and press my back to the door.

He’s quiet as he sits on the other side.

Eventually the credits on the TV roll from the living room. Instrumental music creeps in the stillness.

Then—

“This couple tonight…” he mutters through the door, voice pulling tired through his throat, and I imagine him shaking his head.

“You know at hotels, how every guest thinks that the thermostat’s their bitch? They crank it down to sixty ‘cause they ain’t payin’ for that electric bill—an’ joke’s on ‘em ‘cause none of those things actually work… it’s all controlled from the basement. The hotel gives you the illusion of control.

“So I got this honeymoon couple tonight, right? Wife’s complainin’ it’s too hot. I tell ‘em, ‘look, the system’s central.’ But the wife ain’t havin’ it. She’s nudgin’ her husband like—be a man and do somethin’. So the guy slides me a twenty, tryna impress his wife.

“I tell him I got him, unlock the thermostat cover, pretend to flip a switch, lock it back up. She’s thankin’ me, he’s puffin’ his chest—boom, honeymoon saved.

“Swear—people only see what they wanna see, too blind to connect the lies. Don’t even care if it’s real, only if it makes ‘em feel special.”

His sigh spills out. “Room’s same temp it’s been all fuckin’ night…”

He keeps going, telling stories.

And I sit there,

listening through the door,

the sound of him filling the cracks.

I don’t know how long I’ve been in here.