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“In terms of Mateo searching for you, no,” Melody replied, sliding the chain on the door back into place. “But, after thinking about it, if someone really is searching for you aside from him, he wouldn’t make a huge spectacle about you missing. I’m not sure what the fuck’s going on, but Mateo is obsessed with you, and that’s pretty obvious. I don’t think he’ll ever kill you.”
“Wow, thanks for that,” I replied dryly.
She shrugged and handed me the two plastic store bags.
I looked inside one, quickly reading the labels on a few hygiene products, and let out an exaggerated breath of relief. “Thank you. I feel like I haven’t washed my hair in weeks.”
“We can tell, hun,” Peyton quipped.
“Bitches,” I softly joked, reclaiming my seat on the edge of the bed.
“We parked at the dingy bistro across the street and grabbed some coffee for added cover. No one saw us. The front desk manager was in the back office when we walked by,” Peyton explained, handing me a napkin, plastic fork, and white takeout container
I nodded, popping the lid off and immediately digging into the most exquisite chicken lo mien I’d ever had. After snacking on cereal bars and fruit gushers the last twenty four hours, this was akin to a five course meal.
“How are you doing?” Melody asked, sitting down beside me.
I slurped one last noodle into my mouth and accepted a bottle of water from Peyton.
This was the giant pink elephant in my shitty motel room they’d been cautiously dancing around.
My sister’s jagged heart now hung around my neck, right beside mine. The box of ashes sat on the nightstand. I didn’t pay much attention to it. There’d be brief little moments I forgot it was even there, until it flashed in my peripheral.
She was gone. Call it a twin thing.
Or be a optimist and base everything purely on the words of a man who’d twisted the truth and gave me a flickering flame of false hope. Whichever way it needed to be explained so it could make sense to anyone else was irrelevant, because I couldn’t feel her anymore.
I took a long sip of water and slowly exhaled. “I haven’t cried, haven’t even asked myself the usual questions—ya know, the whys, hows, and whats…” I trailed off, wondering how brutally honest I wanted to be.
It didn’t take me long to decide that as much as these two incredible people risked their asses for me, they deserved the raw truth.
“Part of me feels so incredibly hollow, like I should be curled in the fetal position and sobbing my heart out. Then there’s this other part of me…” I shifted my weight and diverted my gaze back to the television.
“I feel like she needed to die to be free of all the demons dragging her down. I spent literal years, day in and day out, trying to reach her before giving up. The drugs—this world—it had a hold on her that I couldn’t break. I lost the Eva I knew a long time ago.
“I’m not even a little bit sorry to be glad she’s gone, because I don’t have to worry anymore.”
The sound of the fictional detectives filled the lengthy silence between the three of us. When I finally glanced at my two friends, the lack of judgment I saw made me feel ten pounds lighter.
“I think it’s perfectly fine to feel that way,” Melody said, laying her head on my shoulder.
“She’s right. No one gets to dictate how you feel. There is no rule book on how to handle things like this,” Peyton added, sitting down across from me on the opposite bed.
I gave him a small smile, leaning into Melody’s damp head.
My bruised heart swelled.
I was so grateful to have two friends like them. The moment I’d settled into the motel room, I’d called them to let them know I was okay, giving minimal details.
They demanded to know where I was, showing up within two hours, staying until I told them everything.
They’d never once distanced themselves from my epic disaster of a life or left me alone to deal with my issues, even when I refused to let anyone in.
They didn’t look at me differently now I’d finally disclosed the fact that my mother and father were brother and sister.
“I don’t think Mateo did it,” I confessed after an elapsed silence.
“Well, I imagine he didn’t. This isn’t his style of doing things,” Melody said.
