Carter – The Motel
The motel room stank of bleach layered over old cigarettes, the kind of smell that never left the walls no matter how many times someone scrubbed it. Carter sat hunched in the chair by the window, the slats of the bent blinds striping his knees with pale yellow light from the parking lot lamp. The rest of the room was shadow, cluttered with takeout containers and the empty bottles that had rolled under the bed.
His knee bounced. He was jittery, pressing the heel of his hand into it like he could pin the restless energy down. He couldn’t. The twitch in his jaw wouldn’t stop either. The whiskey bottle in his other hand wasn’t helping the way it used to.
He should’ve been sleeping. He should’ve been anywhere but here, circling the same thoughts until they cut him raw. Th
