Waking with a start, her heart racing and head pounding, Chrissy stares up the ceiling of the motel room and can’t help but wonder what day it is.
Friday? Sunday? Wednesday?
She groans, so softly that she barely makes a sound at all, and rolls out of bed.
Stumbles to the door, pulling the too-large shirt down over her underwear as she steps over the mess scattered across the floor, wincing as she leans against the doorframe to let a wave of nausea wash over her.
It’s typical these days — a hangover so harsh it makes her sick, makes her wanna drink some more just to get rid of it.
She pulls the door open and steps out, barefoot on the warm concrete, into the midsummer air.
The sun is dipping down in the sky already. She slept through the day again. She might be a vampire.
Bones breaking, eyes sunken, jaw cracked—
She winces again and stumbles forward to the railing in front of her, feeling the press of metal against her stomach, and leans over it slowly with a long, drawn out sigh, her two necklaces hitting her chin.
Hanging her head over the edge of the balcony, she opens her eyes and looks between the space of her thighs, seeing a figure moving around inside the dark motel room from the door.
Her stomach churns again. Head throbs, like her brain is too big for her skull. Her mouth feels like cotton.
She closes her eyes again as she watches Eddie stand at the door, watching her.
“Chris — what’re you doing?”
She gives a soft hum in response, feeling the wind ruffle her hair.
There’s silence and then she can hear him moving, walking back into the room, and mumbled voices talking.
The metal railing is digging into her skin.
She hears Billy step outside and feels him behind her, his hands on her hips, pulling her hips back against him. The metal doesn’t hurt anymore.
Pushing through the discomfort in her voice, she rasps a dry, “He really sent you?”
“C’mon,” Billy whispers, slides his hands up her waist and to her shoulders, pulls her upright and back against his chest before turning her around.
She presses her cheek against his bare chest, eyes still closed, and listens to his heart beat as he holds her.
His hand brushes her hair back and a delicate kiss placed to the top of her head, his voice so soft as he murmurs, “Let’s go.”
She pulls away from his embrace with a frown and goes back inside, grabbing a random beer can from the bedside table and tipping it back, parching her dry throat with warm beer.
“Ugh!” She feels her stomach roll again and rushes to the bathroom, spitting the butt out into the toilet while ignoring the chuckles behind her.
She should know better by now.
Not bothering to flush it, she turns and goes to the mirror to look at herself.
Smeared mascara and dark circles under her eyes, a face so pale she’s starting to give that vampire thought more merit.
Stumbling back to the doorway, she glares at Eddie on the bed and Billy lighting a cigarette by the door, both of them sharing empty smiles with her.
Her zombie boys. Back from the dead.
A world turned upside down.
“We were thinking,” Eddie starts with a hum, eyeing her with a small, empty smirk, like any humanness he had was left back in that place, “Pancakes.”
Coffee and pancakes at the diner. Yeah. She could do that.
“Sure,” she murmurs. Anything to keep her from going home.
She’d rather be with them, anyway. No one else understands her the way they do and she understands them better than anyone else. Scarred and broken and scared and alone, together.
One day, they’d run away to California together, but not today.
Today, they get pancakes.
