Re: Motel 77: Cris & Sam
"I remember." Slow, she began slow, despite the coke clarity and the racing thoughts. "I thought I could disappoint everyone less if I was more awake, less sick. I know a guy, and he does coke and water shooters. I went to a bar, and I got one." Did he mean that? She wasn't fucking sure. "But it wasn't good. I got worse. IDK, the new meds make me see shit, and my head was so heavy from the lighthouse and all the stuff after." She wasn't sure that was what he meant, and she licked dry, dry lips, cracked at the corners. "I talked to you. I went to get coffee. Meredith was there. Drinking. Drinking. Glass after glass, and I went up to her and told her I wanted to talk. But she ignored me, looked down at me like I was shit." Ok, on a roll now, that coke clarity making dry lips move fast, and she smacked them together and pressed them hard, like she could seal the seam or something. "She was saying shitty things, and she wasn't listening. I wasn't being nice either. But she said I was a dirty little addict, and it hurt." Her features were expressive in their nothingness. Downturned mouth and eyes almost entirely comprised of oceans that overflowed. "I shoved her shoulder." She concentrated, worried about the order of events. "She said not to touch her, and asked if she needed to draw me a picture with crayons so I'd understand. She talked to me like a dog, like I was stupid. I just wanted her to understand that going home to Neil smelling like booze was bad for him. She wouldn't fucking stop, so I shoved her shoulder again. She was drunk, and she fell, and then she started crying and doing that martyr thing, yeah? Like she was some fucking victim, after being so mean." Shudder. Hiccup and tremble, and her fingers were twining in his shirt, and she didn't remember when they'd gotten there. "I turned to leave, but she chased me. Said I couldn't go before she did. She yanked me back by may hair, and I turned, and her mouth was like the woman on the television, overlapped and moving and moving and moving and-" A stuck record, she forced herself to stop. Stop. Exhale. "She was yanking, and her mouth was moving, and I started swinging at her. I screamed, the hair yank hurt, and she was pulling strands out in her fists. I was tired. I don't think I hit hard enough to kill her. Then people pulled us apart, and the cops were coming, and I ran. I ran until I was in the hotel, and then I seized. Then I came here."
She looked at him, hyper-alert and equally unfocused, and she was a little like a trusting idiot who wanted to know if she'd done good telling her story.