I spend a good hour searching websites, trying to figure out how I’m going to do it.
The search immediately brings up a suicide hotline. But that’s for normal people, who are just depressed. My life is actually hopeless. I would be better off dead, and I know it.
Even the websites that tell you how to do it are still trying to talk you out of it. Think of the people who care about you. Yeah, right. I’ve got a husband, who is walking out on me. I’ve got my parents, who I have disappointed every step of the way. Really, the website doesn’t get it. If they knew me, they wouldn’t bother trying to talk me out of it.
My physical limitations will make this tricky. I can’t jump out the window or off a building. Hanging myself is way too labor intensive. I’ll have to go the medication route. Nick will have to give me my pill bottles before I move out. Or I can ask Dr. Heller for a prescription for a sleeping pill.
I haven’t quite decided on a plan yet, but I’m tired from thinking about it. I look back up, out the window, and see a woman moving around room 203. But it isn’t the blond woman. This woman has dark hair.
Unless it’s the same woman, and she just dyed her hair.
That’s a possibility.
Nick dropped the binoculars onto the bed, within my reach. I grab for them and focus on the window again. I zoom in close to the woman in room 203.
It’s somebody different. Somebody older. Curvier.
Definitely an unfamiliar face.
I guess the blond woman must’ve left, and he gave the room to a new guest. I look down at my watch. It’s barely been an hour. Quick turnaround.
I watch this new woman for a minute, but she doesn’t seem to be doing much. Her head is bent, and she seems to be looking down at her phone.
I drop the binoculars on my lap. My life has become pathetic. I’m watching a woman surf the Internet on her phone.
I wish I could just end it all right now.
Then the woman’s eyes lift from her phone. She’s looking straight at the window. Right at me.
I push my hand against my wheels, backing up a foot. At least she didn’t catch me holding the binoculars. But there’s something about this woman that’s making me uneasy. Not jealousy—that’s become a very familiar emotion lately. Something else unnerving.
My phone buzzes from where I left it on the bed. I swivel my head and see a text from Nick:
I can help you get into bed tonight.
I grit my teeth. I don’t want his pity. Granted, it’s something he helps me with every night, so I can see why he feels bad about abandoning me. But I’ll manage on my own. I’ve practiced it a few times since that night I went crashing to the floor.
I type in my reply: Don’t worry about it. Fine. But I’ll bring you dinner. Don’t say no.
I want to tell him not to bother, but that would be stupid. I have become horribly dependent on him over the last five years. If I’d let him turn the dining room into a bedroom like he wanted, I wouldn’t have this problem. But I’ve been stubborn.
Well, he’ll be rid of me soon anyway.
I look out the window again. The dark-haired woman in room 203 is gone, although she left the light on in her room. I scan the parking lot and see only one car, which must belong to that woman. But then I notice the parking lot around the building that used to be Rosalie’s.
The blond woman’s car is still there.
Well, that’s strange. I assumed when I saw somebody else in her room, she must’ve checked out. And Nick himself said that she was very eager to leave. Now that the plow has done its job, why hasn’t she taken off?
Again, I get that uneasy feeling. But really, it’s none of my business. Nothing here is any of my concern anymore. Including Nick. If he wants to make out with all the guests, that’s his business.
I wish I could stop missing him.
I reach for my phone and start scanning through the photos. I haven’t taken any pictures in the longest time. I go back in time to seven years ago. Nick got the idea to do a theme night at the diner, and that particular night, we were doing eighties night. I had on a headband and legwarmers, and I had crimped my hair. Nick was wearing double denim
—denim jeans with a denim jacket—and he slicked back his hair. We snapped pictures of each other, both of us in the middle of laughing at how stupid we looked. Then I snapped a selfie, but Nick ruined it by kissing me in the middle.
We looked so happy. We were happy. I can’t even remember what it felt like to be so happy.
After I’m gone, Nick will meet someone else. I’m sure he’ll be sad about me for a while, but he’ll move on. He’ll find some other woman to have this kind of happiness with
—I’ll just be a distant memory by then. And he can start a family with her. He deserves to be happy. He’s a good guy. I’m not sure if I believe he killed that woman two years ago. He’s not capable of it. We’ll probably never know what really happened to her.
I look up from my phone as some movement from outside the window catches my eye. It’s coming from all the way across the parking lot, at my old restaurant. There’s somebody in front of the blond woman’s car.
At first I think it’s the blond woman, but she’s wearing a different coat. I grab my binoculars again to get a better look.
It’s the dark-haired woman staying in room 203. What on earth is she doing?
Then she looks up, straight at our house. Her eyes point directly at me. I drop the binoculars, my heart pounding. She doesn’t look away.
What is going on?
She’s rifling around in her purse, looking for something. She pulls something out of her purse, but it’s much too far away to see without the binoculars. Cautiously, I bring them back up to my eyes just as she pulls the object from her purse.
I can’t see what the object is, but it glints in the moonlight. Could that be…
A knife?
Oh my God, does she have a knife? Why would this woman have a knife? And what does she plan to do with it?
And then she moves in the direction of our house.
My heart is pounding painfully. What is she doing? Why is she coming here with a knife? Is she angry that I was watching her?
I throw the binoculars onto the bed, like they’re made of fire. She couldn’t have seen that I had them. And even if she did, she wouldn’t kill me over it, would she? It’s not like I saw anything terrible. I just saw her sitting in her room. That’s all.
She’s definitely moving toward the house. There’s no doubt about it. And she’s still got that knife gripped in her hand.
Oh god oh god oh god oh god…
And now she’s at our front door. I hear her knock, but I stay perfectly still. But then a horrible thought occurs to me.
Nick may not have locked the front door.
We were always lax about locking doors. After all, it’s pretty deserted out here and we never had much worth stealing.
And then I hear the footsteps coming from downstairs.
Oh my God. She’s inside.
I grab my phone. The first thing I do is text Nick: Please come here now! Somebody is in the house! Then I dial 911, although it will be far too late by the time they arrive.
“Emergency services,” a female voice says.
“Please help me,” I croak. “There’s an intruder in my house.”
“I’m sorry…. I can’t…… you’re saying.”
Great. The storm must have damaged the closest cell phone tower.
The footsteps are growing louder, and now I hear a loud creak. She’s on the stairs. I don’t have much time.
“Please.” Tears leap into my eyes. “You’ve got to help me! There’s somebody in my house. In the house next to the Baxter Motel on I-93 N.”
“Ma’am……. can’t……”
And now the phone is dead.
The creaking noise stops. She must’ve reached the top of the stairs. In two seconds, she’ll be in my bedroom. With that knife.
She’s going to kill me.
Isn’t this what I wanted though? I was just looking up how to kill myself on Google. And now this stranger is going to do the job for me. Why am I calling 911? I should open the door for her. Welcome her.
Except I realize at this moment that I don’t want to die.
As my heart pounds rapidly in my chest, it’s like a fog has lifted from my brain. The fog that’s been coloring every moment of my life for the last five years. My life isn’t hopeless, and I don’t want to die. I want my restaurant back. I want to get those contractors in and convert the kitchen so I can use it again even if I can’t stand or walk. I want to do a course of physical therapy so that I can take care of myself again and I don’t have to depend on Nick for every little thing.
And I want Nick. I don’t want him to leave. I don’t want him to find some other woman and be happy with her. I want him to be happy with me again. I want to start a family with him.
But most of all, I want him. I want him so badly. I don’t want to die before seeing him again.
The door to my bedroom swings open. The dark-haired woman is standing there in her pea green winter coat, a knife glinting in her right hand. I push my hands against the wheels of my chair and hit the wall behind me.
“You…” she hisses at me.
I raise my hands in the air. “I’m sorry. Whatever you think I did, I’m sorry.”
“You know what happened to my sister,” she snaps at
me.
“Your… sister?” Is she the sister of the blond woman?
She raises the knife and takes a step towards me.
“Don’t play dumb.”
I glance down at my phone. Nick hasn’t responded to my text. He probably hasn’t even seen it. He’ll read it just in time to discover my dead body. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
“Liar…”
“Please…” A tear escapes my right eye. “I didn’t do anything to your sister. I swear.”
She takes another step forward. Her eyes are pools of darkness, staring into mine. “I never said you did.”
