she’s been sleeping with a butter knife under her pillow for the past three days.
sally knows how stupid it is. the blade was barely sharp enough to cut through her bagel when she’d stolen it from the hotel lobby, worn from use, water stains speckled along the steel. she’d slipped it up her sleeve when she was sure no one was looking, bringing it back to her room to score against the hot arizona asphalt on her rare afternoons alone, eyes darting warily around the parking lot as she broke a promise to a man often on the run. it’s all blunt edges now, doing more otiosity than harm but tucked against the sheets all the same, a threat waiting to become an action.
she doesn’t want to use it. even thinking about using it hollows out sally’s stomach, pressing a penny-ish tang to the back of her mouth before she swallows it back. and yet, for some reason, it helps her. it gives her something to hold; it gives her a chance in a situation with so few chances. there’s something to be said about that, isn’t there? using the past— sitting like an old coat in the closet of heart— to comfort her now?
it’s a thought she has no use for here. the knife came with enough grief; using it to cut the ache from her chest would only give her more.
FADE IN ON SALLY. she’s not sure what wakes her up, but whatever it is does so slowly, a hand drudging through cold water to pull her to the surface. the moon eats its way through the curtain, barely touching the corners of the room but just enough to cast a filmy light over it, finally stirring her from sleep. it’s then, after a blink or two, that she feels a second presence lingering at the farthest wall, the camera panning to a figure that scares her even as she recognizes it.
SALLY: jesus christ! [ she rushes to sit up on her palms, one reaching blindly under the pillow, flinching from the man sitting at a distance. after a second SALLY huffs, brows furrowing with a sharp: ] what the hell, barry?
her face flushes with an irritating embarrassment. despite their time together and the truth of him now painfully known, sally has done her best to mask her fear. sure, the mafia on their tail is enough to shake her, but sharing a car, a room, a diner table with a man who’s killed before— killed friends— and will kill again? she doesn’t want to give him that satisfaction even if she’s sure he doesn’t want it. after all, this isolation was his act of love; she knows how similar the two can look.
sally thinks to throw her pillow at him, but a combination of anxiety and bitterness stops her before she can. too ‘rom-com’ for her taste. her heart slams erratically against her chest, and try as she does to calm it down it prevails, the rhythm making a home in her throat. no way she’s sleeping now. with a sigh she swings her legs over the side of the bed, refusing to give him another look.
❝ what are you doing? you look like a fucking serial killer. ❞ if the shoe fits. a thought possesses her now, one that stills her immediately, her voice hushed when she asks, ❝ wait. is something wrong? ❞
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