Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
T his motel is where people go to die.
We’d rolled into the pay-by-the-hour motel this morning at 5 AM, ripped off the comforter, and laid on top of the sheets, staring at the ceiling. The room was sweltering from the non-existent air conditioning, but it was frigid in the space between Marcus and me.
I’d fallen asleep at some point, and when I woke up, Marcus was gone. For a split second, I thought he’d gone back to Stanford without me. But then I’d seen the note on the nightstand, saying he’d gone to look for a place we could stay long term.
I’d showered, making sure not to touch the sagging walls or filthy curtain, and by the time I was done getting ready, Marcus had come back and told me he’d found a place. We’d grabbed our bags and jumped on the bike, not looking back.
In the late morning light, the streets of Las Vegas are gray and weary, like all excitement and energy drained when the electrical switches were turned off at sunrise. Now everything’s getting beaten by the sun, including us, as Marcus parks the bike and we shuffle across melting asphalt toward the slumped stucco building.
We trudge upstairs to the second floor and stop at room 252, its door dented in the perfect shape of a fist. There’s space at the bottom of the door for any and all desert creatures to crawl inside and join us. Or crawl out, depending on what currently lives inside.
We’re about to find out.
Marcus unlocks the door and swings it open to reveal just how much $69.99 per day gets you in Las Vegas. My eyes jump across the cracked linoleum and threadbare carpet. The dingy walls. A sagging bed on a rusty frame that perfectly matches the feelings we’re carrying with us. The quilted bedspread looks like it’s been here since the 1970s and the sea green accent wall is chipped and faded. There’s a tiny TV mounted on the wall, slightly crooked. A miniature kitchen is shoved in the corner, and the bathroom door is next to the beige fridge, which doesn’t match the white two-unit stove or black microwave. I’m afraid to see the bathroom. I will spend any amount of money necessary on cleaning supplies and shower shoes. We’re definitely going to need shower shoes.
It’s a perfect hideout for drug dealers, prostitutes, or a couple on the run from a released rapist, human trafficker, and felon. Nick will never think to look for us here. No one will. If we die from murder, rat bites, or the secondhand smoke stuck to the walls, no one will ever find us.
“Ahhh.” Marcus tosses his bag on the wobbly, faux wood table. “Home sweet hell on earth. So appropriate.”
The anxiety that’s taken up residency inside me flares, burning up my throat. “Not true.” I take a breath and plaster on a smile, pushing away the tension wrapped around me. “It’s way better than the last place, and we’ll make it great! Make it ours. We know we can. It’s better than?—”
“Stop, Mei.” He closes his eyes, shakes his head.
“Stop what?”
His eyes snap open. “There’s no way to spin this into something good, because it’s not,” he growls, his jaw clenching.
“I wasn’t trying to make it?—”
“Yes—you are.” His voice rises and so does my heart rate when Marcus swears. “You’ve been doing it since we left Stanford—trying to put a positive spin on everything, like you can fix it with words. But there’s nothing positive about any of this. If Nick came walking by right now, I’d kill him.”
I have tried to fix it—to help him see the tiny sliver of good—because I have to stay strong. But it’s exhausting. This isn’t what either of us wants, but I don’t know how to make things better. He’s got no idea how I feel because all he can do is think about himself—what he’s lost, like I didn’t lose anything when Nick showed up. But I lost Marcus, and I lost hope.
“What am I supposed to say?” I burst before I can stop the eruption. “I’m sorry a million more times? Because I am. I’m sorry we’re here. I’m sorry you left Stanford. I’m sorry you lost your scholarship and your soccer team. I’m sorry we ever went to L.A. and that you had to meet Olivia. I’m sorry she’s your mom and that you look like her and that she’s the worst. I’m sorry your life isn’t what you want and that you think punishing me with silence will make anything better.”
“Oh really? You’re being punished? Is that how you feel?” His words cut and anger slips from the gashes inside me.
“Yes! I didn’t tell you to come. You chose to be here and now I get to walk on eggshells because you made the wrong choice. You act like you’re the only one who lost things, but somehow, you forget that I had to run from my life, too. But I had to, you didn’t. You could have stayed like I know you wanted to. So why don’t you just go back and forget all of this ever happened?”
He turns away from me, grabs his bag, and yanks things out of it, throwing everything into a pile on the lumpy sofa.
I glare out the window while he silently opens drawers and hangs his clothes on flimsy wire hangers, then shoves his bag in the top of the closet.
The tension’s too deep to wade through even if I knew what to say, but when the silence gets too heavy, it cracks my resolve. “Marcus, I?—”
He shakes his head. “I can’t talk about this right now. If I do, things are gonna fly out of my mouth. So I’m gonna go for a ride.” He grabs his motorcycle key and heads for the door. “Maybe I’ll find a job while I’m at it so we can stay here forever.”