Chapter Text
“I don’t love you anymore.”
Those were the words that kept racing around in my head. It was a short sentence, only five words long, but it cut me down to my core.
“I am going to work my shift at the Rave. By the time I come back, I expect you to be gone.”
I wanted to say something. What exactly that something was eludes me now. Maybe I wanted to beg for her to stay, maybe I wanted to ask her why, maybe I just wanted another argument.
She left no room for that. The only thing that she gave me to speak to was the closed door of a house that was no longer my home.
There wasn’t much I could really do other than pack a bag and leave.
I packed the suitcase with essentials– a few changes of clothes, some toiletries, and my laptop that contained all my life’s work. Then, I just… left.
I took my car– which was luckily completely in my name– and drove off. For a while, I rode through the streets on autopilot, mind blank. I didn’t know what else to do from this point. I had no family to turn to and all of my friends were Joanna’s friends too. I had this slight, sneaking suspicion that they would side with her rather than me if it came down to it. I couldn’t take another betrayal like that at the moment, so I kept aimlessly driving around, as if that would fix any of the problems that plagued me at that specific moment.
I don’t know how long it took, but eventually I found myself in the middle of a gas station, parked right by the pumps. The car didn’t need gas– I consistently kept the tank topped off– so I was confused about why exactly I stopped here.
Looking outside more carefully, though, I noticed a rundown sign perched on top of a one-story building. It read in red lettering: ‘MOTEL.’
I suppose that made sense.
I pulled my car away from the gas pumps and into a parking spot in the rundown lot. Once I was satisfied, I got out, fetching my suitcase from the trunk before locking the doors. I then wheeled the case behind me as I walked down a beaten dirt path to the door of the motel.
Once I stood face-to-face with the oaken door, I couldn’t help but feel a low sting of embarrassment. Just a few hours ago, I had the life of everyone’s dreams. A big fancy house, shiny new cars in the garage, and an absolutely perfect wife.
I wondered why she had decided on divorce, but I wasn’t going to get any answers to that here.
So, I reached out and opened the door, stepping into the motel. The first thing I noticed was that the inside was somehow more ramshackled than the outside. The wallpaper was peeling, the floorboards creaked underneath my weight, and looking up I could see water damage all across the ceiling.
The room itself was small too. To my right, there was a small lounge area, consisting of cushioned seats gathered around a coffee table that had some shitty magazine resting on it. To my left was the receptionist’s desk. There, a woman sat, looking bored as all hell. She tapped away on her phone, dark hair cascading down her shoulders and purple lips pulled in a taut line.
I let out a low groan under my breath. Of all the places I chose to go, I decided to come here: a shitty motel with even shittier service. A part of me wanted to walk out right now, but the part that won over me was the one that was simply exhausted after the day's events.
So, I walked up to the receptionist’s desk. As soon as I stood in front of it, the woman looked up. Her eyes met mine and that gloomy expression on her face quickly turned into a smile. She turned off her phone, settling it face down on the table as she cheerfully said, “Hello, welcome to Evergreen Motel! What can I do for…”
She paused for a moment, looking me up and down. Her gaze seemed more scrutinizing than before.
Shit.
Her eyes flicked back up to mine and she asked, “...You’re Joanna’s boy, aren’t you?”
I immediately bristled. “My name is Martin, for the record.”
“Sure, sure, but you still have money,” She said, perching her head in her hands. “What’s someone like you doing here?”
“That’s none of your damn business,” I snapped.
“Oooo, fiesty,” she giggled, giving a little ‘grawr!’ I could feel my face warm up in a mix of embarrassment and rage. “What happened to you, tiger? Your girl leave you?”
Never in my life had I wanted to hit a woman, but in that exact moment, I was highly considering it.
Before I could say another word or act on the urges in my head, I heard someone let out a series of loud, chastising clicks. I jumped at the noise, my head whirling around. It was then that I noticed that there was a door that was right next to the receptionist's desk. Currently, it lay open, and against its frame leaned a man who was stout in appearance. He wore a fine outfit– a suit with orange highlights– which was a contrast to his mess of ginger hair. He was giving the receptionist a slight glare, arms crossed.
She let out a groan, lowering her hands to rest on the table. “You’re being a buzz-kill,” She whined.
The man nodded his head enthusiastically. “Yep, I’m being a total buzz-kill. The biggest buzz-kill in the county.”
“I was just asking questions,” She said, voice defensive. “Can’t a lady ask some questions?”
“We here at the motel need to provide tip-top service, not pry,” He pointed out. “How would you like it if someone asked you mean questions after you had a rough day?”
The woman gave a roll of her eyes, letting out a disappointed sigh. “Fine… Fine…” She reluctantly said. She then turned her attention from the man towards me. “Apologies about that… How many days will you be booking with us?”
I stared at her for a long moment. How many days was I staying? How long would it take me to find an apartment back near the heart of the city, where my business was?
“You know, you don’t have to say how long for now.” That voice tore me out of my thoughts. It came from the man, who had moved closer to sit on the tabletop of the receptionist’s desk. “We can just charge you at the end of your stay, it's no biggie.”
I sat on that thought for a moment. That was the best option for me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that was violating some policy the motel had. I looked over to the lady to see if she would reject, but she simply nodded in agreement. I looked back at the man, giving him a small nod and saying, “That would be preferred.”
“Okay then,” She hums, pulling out a rather thick binder that had been left to the side. She flipped through the pages, grabbing a pen with her free hand while asking, “What room are you putting him in?”
The man seems to think for a moment, reaching into his pants pocket and pulling out a ring filled with keys. He flicks over each one, before saying, “I’ll put him in room 106.” The woman nods, quickly writing it down in one of the pages in the binder. He seemed satisfied at that, jumping down from the counter and approaching the door he came from. “Come with me and I’ll show you to your room,” He says, gesturing to me to come with him. Wordlessly, I followed him as he led me into the motel proper.
The hallways here were no better than the room up front. There was a persistent scent of mildew that filled the air and I noticed how some of the rooms were boarded up. I felt tempted to ask the man what that was all about, but I found myself too tired to bother starting up a conversation.
It wasn’t long before we encountered the room in question. He took a key off the ring, reaching out and unlocking the door. He then offered it to me, saying, “This key will get you in and out of your room. Failing to return your key upon your departure will result in a fifty-dollar fine… You know, standard motel business.”
“Understood,” I replied, taking the key from his hand.
I opened the door, ready to go inside, but before I did the man said, “Oh, by the way, we do serve breakfast in the morning. Usually it would cost you, but consider it on the house given how rude Mikayla was being.”
So that's what her name was. I turned around just slightly to look at the man as I said, “Thank you, I appreciate it.” I paused for a moment, before asking, “What is your name?”
“Tobias,” He answered. “But everyone around here just calls me Toby.”
That gave me pause. I found myself looking over the man again, and sure enough, something in my brain clicked. This was the same man who was on the news a little under a year ago, being interviewed about a brutal murder found in a motel room he was serving.
It was almost hard to believe those two were the same person. In that interview, he was clearly a wreck– hastily thrown on outfit, visibly tangled hair, and eyes deep and heavy with depression. He was practically a shell of a person that day, but now…
It looked like he was doing just fine.
For some reason, that caused the slightest twinge of hope to blossom in the depths of my stomach.
“You look better than the last time I saw you,” I mutter.
He gives a small smile, one tainted with a slight bit of hesitance. “Yeah… Life goes on.”
“...Indeed it does,” I said, turning back towards the room. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
I entered the room and closed the door behind me.
The room was just as depressing as the rest of the motel, with only a bed and a wardrobe. I perched my suitcase by that wardrobe, before turning to the bed. I reached out, pressing my hand against the mattress. It was then that I found out that the mattress was as hard as a rock, a far cry from the fluffy bed I usually slept in. I let out a low sigh, sitting on the edge of the bed and staring at the yellowing wallpaper.
Now that I was alone and settled, my thoughts began to wander. They went towards the coldness and apathy in Joanna’s eyes, to the aimless drive around town, to the rapidly deteriorating motel I sat in.
I needed to find somewhere to live soon. I had enough savings to float me for a good bit, but I think if I were to stay in this motel for more than a week I would go mad.
House seeking could be handled later. For now, though, I needed to get some shut-eye. It would be hard given the conditions, but I could manage.
…And it wasn’t like I didn’t have other options, either.
I wasn’t too specific about the items I had grabbed from the house when I was planning my departure, except for one minor thing.
I walked over to my suitcase and set it down on the floor. Then, I peeled back the zippers and opened it.
In between layers of clothes that I carefully moved aside, was a bottle. It was made of dark glass, with a yellowish label wrapped around its middle. Its cork remained firmly in place, a fact that was soon about to change.
A part of me tried to argue against this course of action. It pointed out the fact that we had things we needed to do tomorrow, and that being hungover would certainly not help. But surely I deserved this, no? To have a moment to unwind and forget about everything for a while?
That’s what I thought to myself as I took a hefty swig of the bottle.
Tonight would– hopefully– be a short one.