❛ you said you wanted to talk? ❜
‘ DOESN’T SOUND LIKE SOMETHING I’D SAY. ’ except he did, and they both know it. a couple of hours ago, he’d dragged the room’s only chair outside and planted it in front of the door. sat down, facing the parking lot, and started nursing a cheap bottle of something in a brown paper bag from the liquor store up the block.
that was before it got dark. he hasn’t moved since.
‘ — i heard her in there. ’ head tilts in a loll to indicate the room behind him, as if in there could mean anywhere else. as if jonah didn’t know exactly where the fuck he meant. a broken rasp of a laugh scrapes his throat like sandpaper, or the drag of jagged fingernails ; he’s drunk, and he has no intention of sobering up tonight. not after that.
he ignores the phantasmic echo of that laugh, the residual static that creeps up his spine and grazes the shell of his ear like a kiss. one weighted gaze meets another and the play of shadow on his face makes it look bruised.
‘ in the bathroom. like, uh … she used to do that, you know, forty fuckin’ minutes doing her hair, it’s this whole routine. she was in there. ’
humming. he remembers that. it goes like this, like a recording of a memory played back for him : he’s lounging on the bed and he sees her walk past the open bathroom door, on the inside. she hums while she gets ready, an easy cadence blending with the soft click and clatter of makeup cases against countertop. more jarring when he gets up from the bed and steps breathless into the light and finds the room empty.
you’ll understand why he hasn’t gone inside again.
why his eyes turn hard after he takes another swig of liquor and looks up. wetting his lips to catch the bitterness, detaching from the question he’s asking because he’s already started to guess the answer and it makes him want to wrap an extension cord around his neck and pull.
‘ who stayed in that room before me ? ’
question starters / accepting / @bodyafraid .
