3. Chasity
CHASITY
The big oak door clicks shut, sealing out the storm and leaving me standing in a puddle of my own making on the polished hardwood floors.
A wave of warmth rolls over me, coaxing the feeling back into my numb fingers.
The inn is nothing like the sterile, minimalist hotels Jason and I favor, all glass and chrome and the scent of chemical air freshener.
This place smells of cinnamon and old books, of the cedar logs crackling in the enormous stone fireplace, and something sweet and buttery that has no business baking this late.
The man from behind the desk approaches, his footsteps quiet on the wood. He has dark, messy hair and a tattoo of a forest snaking up his forearm from under the sleeve of his flannel shirt.
“Lachlan.” He offers his name with an easy grin, a flash of white in a lightly scruffed face. The effortless charm in his warm brown eyes sets every one of my frazzled nerves on edge. I am not emotionally equipped to deal with an attractive man being nice to me.
Not tonight.
“Chasity.” The name feels foreign on my tongue.
“Right. Let’s get you sorted, Chasity.” Lachlan moves back behind the desk, pulling a heavy guest book toward him. “So, Ridge Road got you, huh? That hairpin turn after the scenic overlook?”
I nod, wrapping my arms tighter around myself inside Ben’s sweatshirt. It smells like motor oil and clean cotton.
“That turn’s a menace in the rain. What happened? Hydroplane?”
My face grows hot. The truth feels ridiculous, a pathetic punchline to the worst day of my life. “Something like that. I had to swerve.”
He pauses, a pen hovering over the page, and looks at me. His gaze is too perceptive. “Swerve for what? A deer?”
I stare at the intricate grain of the wooden desk. The words come out in a mumbled rush, a shameful confession. “Possums.”
“Sorry?” He leans forward. “Didn't catch that.”
“Possums,” I repeat, the word tasting like ash. “A whole family of them just… waddling across the road.”
He stares at me for one long, silent second. Then he throws his head back and laughs, a loud, genuine bark of surprise that echoes in the quiet lobby. His grin is wide and startling.
“Possums? A whole family?” He shakes his head, still chuckling as he scribbles on the registration card. “Well, I’ll be. Welcome to town. Looks like you’re our new Possum Princess.”
I want the ancient floorboards to split open and swallow me whole.
My mortification is surely written all over my face. The bright humor in Lachlan's eyes softens, his grin fading into something kinder. He rests his elbows on the counter, his posture relaxing.
“Hey, don’t mind me. City folks are always surprised by our wildlife. Just be glad it wasn't a bear. They don’t swerve so easily.” He slides the registration card and a heavy brass key across the desk. “I need a card for incidentals.”
I fumble in my damp purse, my fingers stiff and uncooperative. “Right. I guess I need a room. Just for a night or two, until my car is fixed.”
He takes the card without looking down at it, his gaze steady on mine. “We’ve got a long-term rate. It’s the off-season, so things are quiet. I’ll just put you down for that. Cheaper. You can settle up whenever you decide to check out.”
The simple statement hits me harder than any of his jokes. No questions. No pity. Just a solution, offered without any strings. I cannot remember the last time kindness felt this uncomplicated. I give a tight, jerky nod, unable to form a response.
He just taps the brass key. “Room 2B. Top of the stairs, end of the hall on your left. Let me know if you need anything. The kitchen’s closed but I can probably find you something.”
“No. I’m fine. Thank you.” I snatch the key and flee before he can offer anything else.
The room is a haven. A small fire is already going in a stone hearth in the corner, its low crackle a gentle counterpoint to the rain drumming against the window panes.
A thick patchwork quilt lies folded at the foot of an old iron-frame bed, and the air smells faintly of lavender and woodsmoke.
Every part of it feels solid, real, a quiet embrace.
The borrowed sweatshirt falls in a heap on the floor.
I sink onto the edge of the mattress, the springs groaning softly.
My entire body feels like one big, exposed nerve.
The adrenaline that propelled me for hours dissolves, leaving a profound, hollow exhaustion in its place.
My phone sits face down on the nightstand, a dark, silent rectangle of judgment.
With a shaky hand, I pick it up. The screen comes to life, and the world I’ve run from floods in.
Forty-seven missed calls. Over a hundred text messages.
A wall of notifications, a digital avalanche of panic and anger and confusion.
My mother. My sister. My maid of honor. And Jason. So many from Jason.
I scroll. A blur of exclamation points from my mother, each text a higher octave of hysteria.
Where are you?! Call me this instant!!! A text from Jason's mother, so cold it could freeze the screen: Jason is devastated.
We are all deeply humiliated by your behaviour.
My sister sends a screenshot of a group chat named ‘FIND CHASITY NOW’ where my maid of honor details her plan to check my credit card statements and call every hotel within a hundred-mile radius. A digital manhunt is underway.
Through it all, one name remains absent.
I tap open the call log, my thumb tracing down the long list of missed calls.
Not one from him. I switch back to the messages, scrolling past dozens from everyone else, searching for a single word from Jason.
Nothing. The silence is absolute. It is not the sharp sting of rejection I expect.
It is a cold, sinking clarity. A tightness seizes my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs as I stare at the blank space where his name should be.
A quiet, unnerving question surfaces. Is he relieved?
The thought is a jolt. I throw the phone onto the quilt as if it burns my fingers.
I need to leave. I can call for a car, some faceless rideshare that takes me to another town, another anonymous hotel room.
The suitcase sits open on the floor, my damp clothes a miserable pile beside it.
I picture myself stuffing them back inside, zipping the bag closed, lugging it back down those polished wooden stairs.
The idea is a physical weight, pressing me down into the mattress.
Every bone aches with a fatigue that runs deeper than sleeplessness.
Beneath the steady rhythm of the rain, the old building breathes around me.
I hear the faint moan of a floorboard from the floor below, the low thrum of music—a guitar and a sad, male voice—drifting up through the vents.
Someone, Lachlan, is moving through the dark rooms downstairs, living a life entirely separate from the wreckage of mine.
The quiet sounds ground me. The fire crackles.
The rain falls, and finally, the walls of my own mind do not feel like a cage.
Sometime after midnight, sleep finally pulls me under, a deep, dreamless tide.
The weight of the quilts feels like an anchor, pinning me to the mattress while the storm drums a soft, relentless rhythm against the window.
Here, there are no seating charts spread across the dining room table, their color-coded sticky notes a constant, silent accusation.
No wedding timeline taped to a stainless-steel refrigerator, its cheerful font mocking my hollow gut.
No polite, strained smiles for Jason's parents over a dinner I cannot taste.
Just the scent of woodsmoke and the endless, soothing whisper of rain.
I wake slowly, tangled in a cocoon of warmth.
Soft, grey light filters through the window, the world outside muted and still.
The rain has stopped. For a long moment, I just lie here, floating in the quiet space between sleep and consciousness.
My body feels heavy and boneless, my mind blissfully blank.
A single, coherent thought finally surfaces, clear and sharp as a shard of ice in the peaceful quiet.
My first thought is not about the car. It is not about Jason.
It is not about the logistics of escape.
It is nothing.
The absence of the familiar, gnawing anxiety is so profound it feels like a physical presence in the room.
I wait for the panic to come rushing back, for the frantic calculations to begin anew.
I should be mapping a route, finding a bus schedule, figuring out how to get as far away from here as possible before my sister’s manhunt closes in.
But the impulse isn’t there.
A different kind of fear, cold and sharp, cuts through the warmth of the blankets.
It prickles along my scalp and slides down my spine.
The wedding was a cage I understood, its bars defined and its expectations clear.
This… this quiet room, this empty morning, this terrifying lack of a plan…
it is a different kind of prison. One without walls.
I push myself up, my heart starting to thud against my ribs.
I have no idea what to do next. That terrifies me more than anything.