Headlights(84)

I will not feel sorry for her, I tell myself again. I won’t. Not anymore. Not now that I see, finally, what I should have seen from the very beginning.

She stares at me for so long that I think I don’t breathe at all.

Finally, softly, just low enough for the two of us to hear and with such a pained expression on her face that I nearly betray myself again, she says, “I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Now let’s see, just to keep track here. You don’t eat meat, you don’t drink, and you didn’t—”

“Goddamnit,” she says, slamming her hand down on mine on the table. “Listen to me.” Her skin, my skin, her hand on my hand. She seems to realize, pulls it back, her face flushed. “I didn’t”—she lowers her voice—“kill them. I just…”

“You just what?”

The waitress appears again. “Oh, hi there! I just wanted to let you know that your room is all ready when you’re finished here! How’s the—”

“We’ll take this to go, and the check,” I say.

We both reach for the second scotch.



* * *



We find our room, have to pass about twenty mirrors to get there. Two young women are taking a selfie in front of it, and they scurry off when they see us approaching. A brass plaque on the wooden door says THE STEPHEN KING SUITE. I open it, wait for Hannah to walk in first. She keeps her distance from me, the take-out container in my hand.

Inside, the red patterned carpet from the hall continues through the room. On our left is a heavy wooden armoire, dresser, and chair. A large dark wood four-poster bed sits in the center of the room with a leather and wooden bench at the foot of it. On the other side of it, a seating area that blocks entry to the balcony. On the wall with the bathroom door is a large desk and chair, and a bookshelf full of books. I don’t have to look at them to know what they are.

I stand just beyond the door, my back to it, Hannah hovering between the bathroom and the bed. Her attention moves to the hall door behind me. I’m blocking her exit. A shadow hangs back in the corner by the bookshelf.

“Talk,” I say.

Hannah’s eyes flick to the take-out container in my hand, then back to me.

“Do you want this?” I say.

“No.”

“What’s the nose plug for?”

“I can’t be close to—”

“You didn’t just start wearing it after the motel. What is that tube you keep hiding?”

“Capsaicin,” she says quietly. That word sounds familiar. “It’s to make it so you can’t smell. To deaden the sense.”

That spicy smell on her, that’s what it is.

“Why did you take the card from my cabin?” she asks. “Why did you lie about being there?”

I tighten my jaw.

She glances at the take-out container again, her nostrils flaring. “Can we get that out of here, I—”

I step forward. “You want it?”

She takes a step back.

I see it there. A flash. Want. Desire.

“No,” she says.

“Are you sure?” I take another step forward, reach it out to her. “Here. Take it.”

“I—” She shakes her head. Her hand shoots up to her nose. “What do you want from me?!”

“I want the truth,” I say. “I want every fucking detail. I want everything.”

SHE KNOWS.

My chest is heaving, and I feel like I’ve just run a marathon, like I want to run another. This woman, right here in front of us, of me. Us here in this hotel room together.

“Okay,” she says, finally. “Okay. Just. I don’t know, put that in the bathroom or something. I can’t talk with it in here. Please.”

Somehow that please sends that protective jolt through me again. I ignore it, even as I put the container in the bathroom without losing sight of Hannah. And when I step back in, she’s sitting on the bench at the foot of the bed, looking down at her hands, one of them still holding the tooth. Her feet on the carpet.

“We should bandage your hand,” she says, without looking up.

“It’s fine,” I say. I don’t really know if it’s fine. I mean it’s just a pinky, but I don’t know how much a pinky can bleed. It hurts like hell, actually. I hesitate, then call down for a first aid kit. A few minutes later one arrives. Hannah makes no move to leave when I open the door.

“It’s a long story,” she says, when the porter leaves and I sit against the door on the carpet, open up the kit.

“Great,” I say. My heart going crazy in my chest. The snow casting the whole room in that muffled blue-white light. I’m grateful for something to do with my hands.

“Seven years ago, I went to California. I was looking for a change,” she says. “In my life. Some kind of, I guess, like, revelation. I was twenty-two, I didn’t know anything. And … my life before, growing up, it was lonely. In college I studied, mostly, and I had friends but they were superficial relationships. I just never really found anyone who…”

She clears her throat. “And then I met Eden.”

The pain on her face when she says the name. Anxiety courses through me. Fear, jealousy, maybe. I rip open the alcohol wipes with my teeth and start to clean up some of the blood. I hiss against the pain, do it anyway.