Chapter 4
583 Words
On the third night, I walked toward the hotel with a bag in my hand.
Inside were clean clothes for Blake.
There was a bottle of pills, too.
I had found it in the back of the cabinet in his bedroom.
The label had been torn off, so I had no idea what the pills were.
I had asked him twice, and he had refused to answer both times.
All I knew was that he had to take them every day.
Otherwise, he'd become irritable.
His fingers would curl into fists before he seemed to realize it.
There were other things in the bag, too.
I had stood in front of the pharmacy shelf at the convenience store for eight full minutes.
My face had burned so hot I thought I might melt straight through the floor.
I literally closed my eyes when I pressed the button.
When the small red box dropped into the metal tray, the sound was so loud in my head that I nearly died of embarrassment on the spot.
When I entered Room 1208, the bathroom light was still on.
Blake was sitting in the tub, wearing the gray lounge pants I had brought him the night before. His right hand was still bound.
I placed the pill bottle on the sink first.
"Your medicine. You were almost out, so I went to your apartment and got it."
He looked at me.
"You went through my cabinet."
It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
I poured out two pills and held them to his mouth.
He stayed silent for a while. Then he opened his mouth and swallowed them.
He swallowed hard, and my eyes caught on the movement of his throat before I could look away.
Then I took out the small red box and placed it gently on the edge of the sink.
His gaze dropped to the box I had set beside, and his expression darkened at once.
"I read about it online," I said, lowering my head as heat rushed to my ears. "It said the first time might hurt, so I should be well-prepared."
"Isla."
His voice cut through mine, cold enough to make my chest tighten.
"Do you even hear yourself right now?"
Of course I did.
I knew exactly how cheap I sounded, offering myself to a man who had spent the past three years treating me as someone else's shadow.
But Ximena was coming back tomorrow.
Once she returned, there would be no place for me here.
If I had to leave anyway, then I wanted to go all out just once. I wanted to give him something that was truly mine, even if he might never want me the way I wanted him.
I took off my shoes and stepped into the bathtub. Then I lowered myself carefully, bracing my knees around his waist.
The moment I settled on his lap, his entire body went rigid.
I pressed both hands against the porcelain wall behind him and looked down at his face.
His breathing had turned uneven, and his eyes had gone so dark that they almost frightened me.
I leaned closer until my lips brushed the edge of his ear.
"Blake," I whispered, "you won't owe me anything after this."
My throat tightened, but I forced myself to keep going.
"If I resemble her enough for you to keep me around for so long, then this should be easy for you. You can close your eyes and pretend I'm her."
- Writer
