It’s somebody different. Somebody older. Curvier. Definitely an unfamiliar face.
I guess the blond woman must’ve left, and he gave the room to a new guest. I look down at my watch. It’s barely been an hour. Quick turnaround.
I watch this new woman for a minute, but she doesn’t seem to be doing much. Her head is bent, and she seems to be looking down at her phone.
I drop the binoculars on my lap. My life has become pathetic. I’m watching a woman surf the Internet on her phone.
I wish I could just end it all right now.
Then the woman’s eyes lift from her phone. She’s looking straight at the window. Right at me.
I push my hand against my wheels, backing up a foot. At least she didn’t catch me holding the binoculars. But there’s something about this woman that’s making me uneasy. Not jealousy—that’s become a very familiar emotion lately. Something else unnerving.
My phone buzzes from where I left it on the bed. I swivel my head and see a text from Nick:
I can help you get into bed tonight.
I grit my teeth. I don’t want his pity. Granted, it’s something he helps me with every night, so I can see why he feels bad about abandoning me. But I’ll manage on my own. I’ve practiced it a few times since that night I went crashing to the floor.
I type in my reply: Don’t worry about it.
Fine. But I’ll bring you dinner. Don’t say no.
I want to tell him not to bother, but that would be stupid. I have become horribly dependent on him over the last five years. If I’d let him turn the dining room into a bedroom like he wanted, I wouldn’t have this problem. But I’ve been stubborn.
Well, he’ll be rid of me soon anyway.
I look out the window again. The dark-haired woman in room 203 is gone, although she left the light on in her room. I scan the parking lot and see only one car, which must belong to that woman. But then I notice the parking lot around the building that used to be Rosalie’s.
The blond woman’s car is still there.
Well, that’s strange. I assumed when I saw somebody else in her room, she must’ve checked out. And Nick himself said that she was very eager to leave. Now that the plow has done its job, why hasn’t she taken off?
Again, I get that uneasy feeling. But really, it’s none of my business. Nothing here is any of my concern anymore. Including Nick. If he wants to make out with all the guests, that’s his business.
I wish I could stop missing him.
I reach for my phone and start scanning through the photos. I haven’t taken any pictures in the longest time. I go back in time to seven years ago. Nick got the idea to do a theme night at the diner, and that particular night, we were doing eighties night. I had on a headband and legwarmers, and I had crimped my hair. Nick was wearing double denim—denim jeans with a denim jacket—and he slicked back his hair. We snapped pictures of each other, both of us in the middle of laughing at how stupid we looked. Then I snapped a selfie, but Nick ruined it by kissing me in the middle.
We looked so happy. We were happy. I can’t even remember what it felt like to be so happy.
After I’m gone, Nick will meet someone else. I’m sure he’ll be sad about me for a while, but he’ll move on. He’ll find some other woman to have this kind of happiness with—I’ll just be a distant memory by then. And he can start a family with her. He deserves to be happy. He’s a good guy. I’m not sure if I believe he killed that woman two years ago. He’s not capable of it. We’ll probably never know what really happened to her.
I look up from my phone as some movement from outside the window catches my eye. It’s coming from all the way across the parking lot, at my old restaurant. There’s somebody in front of the blond woman’s car.
At first I think it’s the blond woman, but she’s wearing a different coat. I grab my binoculars again to get a better look.
It’s the dark-haired woman staying in room 203. What on earth is she doing?
Then she looks up, straight at our house. Her eyes point directly at me. I drop the binoculars, my heart pounding. She doesn’t look away.
What is going on?
She’s rifling around in her purse, looking for something. She pulls something out of her purse, but it’s much too far away to see without the binoculars. Cautiously, I bring them back up to my eyes just as she pulls the object from her purse.
I can’t see what the object is, but it glints in the moonlight. Could that be…
A knife?
Oh my God, does she have a knife? Why would this woman have a knife? And what does she plan to do with it?