“Exhaustion will do that to you.”
He walks to the door and places his hand on the silver lever, clicking it open again. I just stand here at the foot of the bed. It’s an awkward moment, but it doesn’t last.
“Well, I’ll see you in the morning,” he says from the doorway. “I’m right next to you in 110, so just call or knock or bang on the wall if you need me.” There’s only kindness and sincerity in his face.
I nod, smiling in answer.
“Well, goodnight,” he says.
“Night.”
And he slips out, shutting the door softly behind him.
After absently thinking about him for a second, I snap out of it and rummage around inside my bag. This will be the first shower I’ve had in couple of long days. I’m drooling just thinking about it. I yank out a clean pair of panties and my favorite white cotton shorts and varsity babydoll tee with pink and blue stripes around the quarter-sleeves. Then I find my toothbrush, toothpaste and Listerine and head to the bathroom carrying it all with me. I strip down naked, happily pulling all of the days-old dirty clothes off and tossing them in a pile on the floor. I stare at myself in the mirror. Oh my God, I’m hideous! My makeup has completely worn off; I barely even have any mascara on anymore. More wandering strands of blonde hair have fallen from my braid and are smashed against one side of my head in a rat’s nest.
I can’t believe I’m been driving around with Andrew looking like this.
I reach up and pull the hairband from the braid to release the rest of the hair and then run my fingers through it to break it all apart. I brush my teeth first and leave my mouth full of mint Listerine long until after the burning has already stopped.
The shower is like heaven. I stay in it forever, letting the semi-scalding hot water beat on me until I can’t take it anymore and the heat starts to lull me to sleep standing up. I clean everything. Twice. Just because I can and because it’s been so damn long. Lastly I shave, glad to get rid of that gross wig I was starting to grow on my legs. And finally, I turn off the squeaky faucets and go for the white motel towel folded OCD-like on a rack over the back of the toilet.
I hear the shower running in Andrew’s room next door and I catch myself just listening to it. I picture him in there, just showering, nothing sexual or perverted even though something like that wouldn’t be hard to do at all. I just think about him in general, about what we’re doing and why. I think about his dad and it breaks my heart all over again knowing how much Andrew is hurting and how I feel helpless to do anything for him. Finally, I force myself back into me and into my life and my issues, which really have nothing on Andrew’s.
I hope it never comes down to me being forced to tell him my problems and all of the things that led me on that road-to-nowhere bus trip, because I will feel so stupid and selfish. My problems are nothing compared to his.
I get into bed with wet hair, combing it out with my fingers. I turn on the TV—not tired at all since I just slept most of the way from Denver—and flip through the channels, eventually leaving it on some random movie with Jet Li. But it’s more for background noise than anything.
Mom called four times and left four messages.
Still nothing from Natalie.
“How are you doing in Virginia?” my mom says into my ear. “Having loads of fun, I hope.”
“Yeah, it’s been great. How are you?”
My mom giggles on the other end of the phone and instinctively it repels me. There’s a man with her. Oh gross, I hope she’s not talking to me in bed, naked, with some guy licking her neck.
“I’ve been good, baby,” she says. “Still seeing Roger—going on that cruise next weekend.”
“That’s great, Mom.”
She giggles again.
I scrunch up my nose.
“Well, baby, I need to go. Stop it, Roger.” She giggles again. I’m going to throw up in my mouth. “I just wanted to know how you were doing. Please call me tomorrow sometime and give me an update, alright?”
“OK, Mom, I will. Love you.”
We hang up and I let the phone fall on the bed in front of me. Then I fall back against my pillows, instantly thinking about Andrew being in the room next door. He may be leaning his head against the same wall. I flip through the channels some more until I’ve been through every one of them at least five times and then just give up.
I slump down further and look at the room.
The sound of Andrew playing the guitar pulls me out of myself and I lift my back slowly from the pillows so I can hear it more clearly. It’s a soft tune, kind of something in between searching and lamentable. And then when the chorus comes around, the speed picks up just a fraction only to lament again for the next verse. It’s absolutely beautiful.
I listen to him play for the next fifteen minutes and then it goes silent. I had turned the TV off before I first heard him and now all that I can hear is a constant drip coming from the bathroom sink and the occasional car driving through the motel parking lot.
I drift off to sleep and the dream comes back:
That morning, I didn’t get my usual string of text messages from Ian before I got out of bed. I tried calling his phone, but it rang and rang and the voicemail never picked up. And Ian wasn’t at school when I got there.
Everybody was staring at me as I walked through the halls. Some couldn’t look me in the eye. Jennifer Parsons burst into tears when I walked past her at her locker, while another group of girls, cheerleaders, turned their noses up at me and eyed me as though I was something contagious. I didn’t know what was going on, but I felt like I had walked into some freaky alternate reality. No one would say a word to me, but it was so damn obvious that everybody in that school knew something that I didn’t. And it was bad. I never really had any enemies, except sometimes a few of the cheerleaders showed jealousy towards me because Ian loved me and wouldn’t give them the time of day. What can I say? Ian Walsh was hotter than the star quarterback and it didn’t matter to anyone, not even Emily Derting, the richest girl in Millbrook High School, that Ian didn’t have much and that his parents still drove him to school.
She still wanted him.
Everybody did.
I went on to my locker, hoping to see Natalie soon so maybe she could tell me what was going on. I lingered around my locker longer than usual waiting for any sign of her. It was Damon who found me and told me what happened. He pulled me off to the side, in between the alcove that housed the water fountains. My heart was hammering inside my chest. I knew something was wrong when I got up that morning, even before I realized there were no text messages from Ian. I felt … off. It was like I knew …
“Camryn,” Damon said and I knew right then the seriousness of what he was about to tell me because he and Natalie always call me ‘Cam’. “Ian was in a car accident last night …”
I felt my breath catch and both of my hands flew to my mouth. Tears were burning my throat and streaming from my eyes.
“He died early this morning at the hospital.” Damon was trying so hard to tell me this, but the pain in his face was unmistakable.
I just stared at Damon for what felt like an eternity before I couldn’t stand up on my own anymore and I collapsed into his arms. I cried and cried until I made myself sick and finally Natalie found us and they both helped me into the nurse’s office.
I wake up from the nightmare sweating, my heart racing like mad. I throw the sheet off of me and sit in the center of the bed with my knees drawn up, running my hands across my head and I let out a long sigh. The dream had stopped