Maya
Choosing this hotel was a mistake. It came with too many memories.
She hadn’t showered in days. Her hair had long since come loose from its braid, falling around her face in uneven strands. Her volunteer shirt from Saturday felt garish and out of place. She felt rumpled and conspicuous.
She wouldn’t be staying in the honeymoon suite this time.
“Checking in?” the receptionist asked smoothly.
“Yes,” Maya said woodenly, sliding her credit card over the counter.
They’d spent their wedding night here. One night in this hotel instead of a honeymoon. Even if her charity could have spared her, Maya wouldn’t have wanted to go for long anyway. She loved this community.
The receptionist’s nails tapped lightly against the keyboard as she typed something into the computer. The small terminal beeped when she ran the card.
She frowned and tried again.
Another soft beep.
The woman gave Maya an apologetic smile. “That card has been declined.”
Maya pulled another credit card from her wallet and passed it across the counter.
Another negative beep.
A line was beginning to form behind Maya.
“This card has also been declined,” the receptionist said, quietly. Maya felt heat flooding her face.
She pulled out her phone. The screen filled instantly with notifications.
Her name appeared again and again in the preview text, accompanied by fragments of words she didn’t want to read.
Disgusting. How could she—
Maya swiped them away with her thumb.
More appeared beneath them.
She kept swiping until the banking app opened.
Her accounts were frozen.
Her savings account, her current account. The same banner across all of them, one after another as she tapped through with fingers that had gone slightly numb.
They were all under a legal hold.
Maya could feel it building—the hot, humiliating sting that meant she was about to cry.
Two days ago she had been arrested in front of half the town. She had spent the weekend in a holding cell. Her husband had kicked her out of her own home.
And somehow this was the moment that might break her.
Not the handcuffs, not the holding cell, not Reid's face when he'd told her to leave—this last, painful humiliation was too much for her.
Not here, she thought desperately. Not in front of these people.
She pressed her lips together hard, forcing it back, forcing herself to stay upright, to stay composed, to not give them that too.
“Ma’am?” The receptionist was still holding her second credit card between two fingers, waiting for Maya to take it. Waiting for Maya to leave.
She had no cash. Her credit cards were useless. There wasn't a single person left she could call.
Maya had nowhere to go.
Even this hotel room—this temporary pause she had promised herself—was out of reach.
She didn’t know what to do.
A hand settled gently on Maya’s shoulder.
“Maya.”
The voice was soft and familiar.
She turned. Edith Merritt stood beside her.
Thomas was already at the desk.
The receptionist’s smile warmed instantly. “Mr Merritt, good evening—”
“Thank you,” he said calmly to the receptionist, reaching out and taking the card from her hand.
Edith slipped an arm around Maya’s shoulders, as though this were the most ordinary thing in the world.
“Come along, dear,” she said quietly.
Maya opened her mouth. No words came out.
“Thomas,” Edith said, guiding Maya toward the doors, “you’ll have to drive Maya’s car. I’ll take her in mine.”
The hotel doors slid open automatically as they approached. Edith’s arm stayed around her shoulders as they stepped outside.
“That’s right. Just keep moving,” Edith murmured. “You’re doing great.”
Maya wasn’t sure that was true.
Maya stood in the middle of the Merritts’ guest room.
She sat down on the edge of the bed. She stared around her, numbly. Finally she was alone. But she didn’t want to be here.
She wanted her own home. She wanted her own bed.
She wanted none of this to be happening.
Her brain kept trying to reorder reality into something survivable.
This is temporary. Reid can’t believe she did it. Tomorrow this will make sense again.
But that wasn’t true, was it? Reid did believe it. And tomorrow he would still believe it.
She’d been so certain, waiting all that time in the cell. Knowing, utterly sure, that he would make it all okay.
She bent forward with her hand clapped over her mouth as a broken sob forced its way out of her chest.
She curled on the bed, dragging the unfamiliar duvet over her head like it might block out reality.
She couldn’t stop the noises she was making. Wave after wave until she couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began.
She had nowhere to go.
The thought pounded at her.
Not home. Not Owen’s. Not her parents’.
She cried until her whole body ached with it, until she was hollowed out by it. Her whole body shook. Every breath she tried to take splintered into another sob.
Reid had looked at her like she disgusted him.
The memory rose up so vividly it made her stomach twist. His arms crossed over his chest. The way he had stepped back when she tried to come closer.
Maya pressed the heel of her hand against her mouth harder, trying to hold herself together, but the sobs just kept coming, messy and helpless and humiliating.
After all day of holding herself together, to keep upright, keep moving, it was like something had reached into her chest and torn loose.
Shame. Fear. Grief. Humiliation. Loneliness. They tangled together until all she could do was endure them.
Everything was gone.
Her work. Her reputation. Her marriage. The future she had thought she was building.
She had been happy.
She curled tighter beneath the blankets, like if she folded herself small enough maybe she could disappear inside the grief instead of surviving it.
She was still crying, but quieter now. Her body jerked occasionally with aftershocks, but the worst had burned through her, leaving her hollowed out and exhausted.
Her face hurt, her throat burned raw. Even breathing felt sore.
Maya lay curled beneath the covers, tears leaking into the darkness.
Nobody was coming to save her.