***
That night back at the hotel I couldn’t sleep. So many things were running through my head—about Roman, about Emory. Impossible things. Scary things. The shadow. Roman’s lips.
Because I’d almost kissed him. He was leaning over me, a strand of my hair curled around his finger and I’d almost kissed him. Because he was stuck. Because he wanted to know me and I wanted to let him. Even if it was just because he was lost and I was his only tether to the real world, I wanted to let him.
But then he’d flinched. Again. He’d seen something and in that split second between pretending he was real and pretending I was normal, I was suddenly reminded of his impermanence. Of mine too. Because even though I knew he was right, that not everyone leaves, I also knew that I was right too. That they should.
That was the real reason I’d always gone back to Drew. Not because I knew what to expect but because I knew what I deserved. I thought I did. I thought trying to love someone who left you as much as you left them was only fair. I thought it made sense. And now this. This…Roman. He didn’t make sense even though I wanted him to.
I’d watched his face, the way the rain carved down his jaw line, settling in the dimple on his left cheek and all I could think about was the symbol on his shirt, about finding it in the real world, about telling him it wasn’t a dead end. But then I felt the weight of all that time I’d spent looking and turning up nothing, and in that moment, air rushing out of his mouth and into my lungs, I didn’t want to give him that. Not until I had proof. So I was still, lips waiting and then he’d leaned forward.
But then I’d disappeared.
I felt my mom tossing next to me, fists punching her pillow, trying to get comfortable. She’d been sleeping alone for almost ten years and was not good at sharing a bed. She threw the blankets off and fiddled with the thermostat. When she finally climbed back under the covers she lay on her back, arms crossed.
“So how was it?” she asked, giving up on sleep altogether.
I tried to remember the morning, not letting my mind stray past that ten minute walk to Sugar Browns. “Great.”
“I thought you’d say that.”
“Sorry I didn’t change my mind.” And I hadn’t. Yet. I’d fought for this trip and I wasn’t going to let myself give up that easily.
“I didn’t think you would,” my mom said. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed.”
“I’m used to it,” I said, rolling onto my side.
“You shouldn’t be.” She curled up next to me.
“That’s life,” I said.
I grew quiet then, pretending to sleep. I hated those kind of heart to hearts. They usually ended up with my mom crying over me being sick and me just sitting there. Still sick. Sure, I’d cried over it before. But crying made my face hurt. Crying made a lot of things hurt. So I didn’t. There was no use in crying over things I couldn’t change anyway.
But as I lay there, I didn’t hear that soft gasp of tears. I didn’t feel that quake of her holding them in. Instead, my mom was perfectly still and then she said, “You’re right.”
But the words barely registered, the cold pulling her voice to pieces. I was looking at the shadow in the corner of the room. The one that was following me. Not Roman. I watched it contract. Faceless. Hollow. And then it smiled.