I fight it, try with lulled desperation to sink back into oblivion only to find the way blocked. Reluctantly, I try to drag my brain into some coherent thought, finding that path equally as difficult. My body does the familiar lag of the morning after, though something tells me it's not morning.
Maybe it's the feeling of ruffled, empty sheets under my fingers as they stretch across the bed. Maybe it's the vague memory that it was well after the sun rose when my body dropped into unconsciousness. Maybe it's the heat.
This is not my bed, I notice with the languor of a post-drug-cocktail binge, though there are no drugs in my system. My sheets are not nearly so scratchy against bare skin. Bare skin, I realize, and finally I find the resolve to pry open my eyes.
For a moment, everything is brightness and foreign colors. The pillow beneath my face is damp with sweat. I can feel my hair sticking to my forehead and neck. The scratchy sheet slips away as I force myself to sit, muscles gathering a familiar tension that I am not quite prepared to catch. With a groan, it all comes crashing down. This is a hotel. My best friend is dead. The night didn't make it go away.
The room's dandelion paint and antique cherry furniture come into focus, as a devastating stab of grief wells up in my chest. It was so easy to force the loss away when a different void was being filled, when we were both escaping through the night. She felt just like I knew she would, tasted better. I can still feel her hair against my skin, but she's gone. I'm alone.
Across the room, the balcony doors still stand open. Might as well, the heat will get in anyway. No air conditioning unit in the world can combat this oppression. The day seems clear beyond the doors, burning late into the hottest part of the afternoon. The bougainvillea is sickeningly sweet outside.
A bead of sweat slides down the side of my throat. I feel like I've been beaten. I wish it were that simple. I wonder miserably if our house has been burned yet in retaliation. I wonder what has become of Charlie, nameless in a refrigerated filing cabinet. Despite all the things I have seen since following Maria down the hallway in an attempt to run away from reality, I can't see anything but her brother's blue lips and pinched eyelids now.
God, he would have thrived in this situation. He would have reacted the same way she did. But he would have made it hurt more, and he probably would have robbed them first.
I don't know how she'll handle this, or how I'll handle it. I don't know which direction she'll fling me if she lets me go, but I can't believe she really wants to. Their reckless and fierce loyalty is what drew me to them in the first place. That's a hard sentiment to find in this profession and in the childhood that led me here.
I think I would have done anything for Charlie upon meeting him, that fucker, when he saved my ass from getting shot. I was just a bright-eyed punk, hustling a game bigger than me and acting much tougher than I was. Charlie had years’ more experience than I did, lifetimes' worth.
I let my fists ball into the sheets as I yield to the tears that rise. They haven't broken until now, so I fight them, which makes it hurt more. I can't move, I can't think, so I stare down at the wet dripping onto the cream-colored sheet that barely covers my lap. The force is so much that, for a moment, I believe the knot forming in my chest will soon explode and kill me.
The door behind me opens, unsettling me enough to stop my tears in an agonizing ball just beneath the surface. It is enough to bring me to face her. In those first few moments of eye contact, I must look like a bewildered mess. I must, because she looks so startled.
Her eyes flash with concern for a fleeting moment, so quick that it could have been my imagination. Then her gaze crawls down the naked length of my body as if her vision has been snagged and weighted hopelessly. Her face darkens into the lust I discovered by chance this morning, which surprises my brain into more perplexity.
Then, just as quickly as the previous look, it's gone. She looks me in the eye and it is strangely cold. More distant than I have ever seen from her. Still no word from the Queen? The street cries from beyond the sultry afternoon.
“Business meeting in half an hour,” she says, voice a mere shell of the luxurious sound I know she can utter.
Ripples like a bad dream shake me. Some of the quakes are memories of her voice, only hours earlier, not quite words. No, this is the first thing she has said to me since the hellish ride away from Biloxi. Echoes of hot hands on a sweaty morning roll over me with trembling ruthlessness, and I'm forced to endure the ghosts of flawless rhythm, of soul cleansing. The other tremors are the words she just spoke. Business. Meeting. Business. It always comes down to that. How could I forget?
She waits as long as she thinks it should take for her words to sink into my muddled and scattered thoughts. She knows I'm stuck in her gaze. Surely she is reading my impaired mind. Then she turns away. She leaves. Her indifference won't falter again. I know it's a mask, but I have no defense against it.
The door closes, oblivious to my offense. She might as well have slammed it against my face and my pride. She might as well have shattered her obscene, glass-bottle cocktail against me at close range. Business meeting. It's never been just business between Charlie, Maria, and me.
