Re: clearing, in a sleigh.
Adam let her go and turned his back away from her so that he could dry off his face and piece back together his emotions. She didn’t get it. Of course it wasn’t real, nothing in the hotel ever was, but it always had a way of showing him things that he needed to know. He owed this hotel everything that MK had brought him. And, even though she really did deserve a better man than him, Adam cherished this past year in Vegas because of her. If the hotel could bring them together, it had the right to show them the truth. Show them what kind of damage they did to each other.
“How can you keep ignoring what was right in front of your face?” Adam asked, turning to look at her in the dark light of the forest. “Doesn’t fix anything. Makes it worse.” And, that was something he had been wanting to say to her since they got back together. Yes, he had convinced himself that her way was the only path towards happiness (however temporary), but he knew deep down they were just putting off doomsday. All these breakups were just false alarms. This, what the hotel was forcing down their throats, was when everything fell apart. “Does matter. Stop lying. Does matter.” Adam pleaded in defeat, part of him knowing she’d never face the truth on her own. Even this wasn’t enough to do it.
He exhaled and rubbed the sides of his pale face with his long hands and shrugged. “Fine. Don’t want to admit the truth. Go home. Pretend it didn’t happen. Like everything else.” Resentment stung in his voice as he was too exhausted to try and cover it up. But, before they could trek out of this damned forest, it seemed to vanish in a blinding white light. The dry heat of the Las Vegas desert rose around them as the sound of chatting crowds and cars moving up and down the strip could be heard. Adam shielded his eyes, finding himself standing in front of the Bellagio Fountains as his vision adjusted to the sun overhead.
Turning to make sure MK was there, he walked over to her and leaned on the railing towards the passing tourists. “Why Vegas?” He asked, wondering why the hotel would subject them to another vision that would no doubt make him miserable. And, just as that thought crossed his mind, Adam saw himself walk by with a redhead on his arm. But, it wasn’t MK. No, it was the tall and equally graceful Ainslie who had left him in Vegas months ago. The two were arm in arm, talking with such happy, carefree expressions. On Ainslie’s finger was a bright, large diamond accompanied by a wedding band that matched the one on Adam’s hand.
The real Adam stopped dead in his tracks, watching the two of them breathlessly like if he exhaled they’d suddenly turn on him. He couldn’t believe how happy he looked with Ainslie and noted that his eyes were bright, clear blue like they used to be before he quit everything in favor of drugs, booze and MK’s love. Ain was never jealous of the clinic or the vigilantes, so of course he could have both and still marry her. That was something he knew he could never have with MK.