Page 20 of The Heartbreak Hotel

A particularly round bird darted overhead, and she tracked its path towards the crags, catching sight of someone standing at the top. Riley. Again? You’ve gotta be shitting me. Ella stopped walking. She didn’t want the woman to think she was following her. That would be weird.

But she didn’t want to hide, either. She could be normal. Maybe.

She pressed forwards, splashing the water around her calves. Senhor Arenoso said she needed to form her own path and follow the earth’s energies. No matter what Riley or Maeve are doing. Ella needed to try, and she wouldn’t let any beautiful women get in her way.

Chapter Six

Riley

Riley swung gently side to side, her body cradled by the hammock. Aside from the faint fairy lights hanging over her cabin door at the top of the path, darkness enveloped her. Her gaze passed over the speckled stars in the sky, and she let out a heavy breath, disturbing her cat Ziggy, who was lying on her chest. He meowed, stretching out his legs and scratching his nails up Riley’s stomach.

“Sorry, Zigs,” she whispered, running her fingers through his soft orange fur. Gentle purrs rumbled in his throat, and he rolled over. The hammock was a Ziggy magnet.

The sweet aroma of the strawberry tree caught on the breeze, and with a deep breath, Riley turned her attention back to the night sky. An iridescent crescent moon made the hue a deep, intense black, the moonlight reflecting on the ocean waves.

Sleep had eluded her again. It always did this time of year, but normally, stargazing and meditating helped. Caught in a stare with the tar-like sky, her mind buzzed as though the nearby crickets had crawled right inside her skull. Cuddling Ziggy eased it a little but didn’t quite calm the storm weathering in her chest. The nightmares had come thick and fast tonight, forcing her up and out of her bed.

The screeching of tyres, Elodie’s high-pitched scream, the crunching and cracking of metal. The boy’s crying. She didn’t have to close her eyes to see the damage. It cast itself onto the sky above her like a projector, morphing the constellations to reenact her dreams. The blood, the debris, the flashing sirens. The memories still made Riley’s stomach sick.

She knew it would pass eventually, and patience was key to bringing her mind back to balance. But Riley was tired; tonight, she just wanted it to stop.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she focused on her breathing, trying to take her attention away from the intrusive thoughts. “Observe them, and then let them pass. Focus on your breathing.” Senhor Arenoso’s voice echoed through her brain. “You’ll be okay.”

But the images still burned behind her eyelids.

A swirl of red hair joined the mix, a lifeless body rolling through the waves. Saving Ella had flared up some old memories, blurring the lines between past and present. She opened her eyes, but Ella’s face remained, floating above her in the starry sky.

She couldn’t think about Ella now as well. Clearly, immersing herself in nature wasn’t working.

She scooped Ziggy up into her arms, breathing in his comforting scent, and carried him up the path to her cabin. Once inside, she laid him on the blue bedspread, and he flopped onto his back, exposing his white fluffy tummy. Riley half-smiled, giving the soft fur a tickle, before turning her attention to the bookshelf beside the bed.

Her chest tightened when her eyes locked on one particular album. She hesitated, but the urge compelling her forced her feet to move. The album’s thick spine was worn and creased by time, but Riley couldn’t look away. She’d been fighting the impulse for days.

She pulled it out and thumbed through the pages. Elodie’s pale face smiled back at her, posing on their bed, selfies of the two of them kissing in Barcelona and Madrid, Elodie’s dark hair caressed by the wind. Each happy photo of them together twisted her guts tighter and tighter into a ball.

What am I doing?

Recounting a painful trip down memory lane wasn’t going to help her. Marco Marcos would have a fit if he knew. Falling into these bad habits went against a lot of philosophies she held close. She’d tell the clients in the course that they needed to break the cycle, not to dwell on what they knew caused them pain, not to give up on the breathing techniques she’d practised with Ella yesterday.

But Riley was a hypocrite.

Her gaze combed over cinema tickets and faded receipts, blurry Polaroid pictures from their trips to Amsterdam and Paris. Riley never cared much for the city breaks and drinking, but somehow, she didn’t mind when it came to Elodie.

But Elodie would roll her eyes if she could see her now. She’d never understood the need to keep “pointless junk” and would question the reasons for Riley taking random mementos from their dates—but this just proved Riley’s point. Without this album—without all of these things—it would be as though the two of them never even occupied the same space. As if Elodie wasn’t the love of her life.

It had been years since she’d seen or even heard from her, but that didn’t stop the fresh, familiar pain from sliding into her chest and squeezing around her heart, like it always did this time of year. How quickly they’d gone from soulmates to strangers was something no amount of time could help her understand. Her new thoughts about Ella only seemed to exacerbate the guilt.

She and Elodie had been together for most of their twenties, until that night coming back from Elodie’s parents’ house changed everything.

One minute, they had their whole future ahead of them. The next, their lives were never the same.

The car accident was the catalyst but not the figurative nail in their coffin. Their relationship couldn’t withstand all the aftermath. The media, the court-case, how Elodie turned to the bottle instead of her for support…. Riley couldn’t save someone who wasn’t willing to help themselves. She knew this—she saw it proven day after day at work—but still, she couldn’t help but feel responsible for how things had ended between them. Ultimately, she wasn’t enough.

Would it be the same with Ella?

Her head spun, Elodie and Ella tumbling together in a tangled mess. She slammed the photo album shut, kicked it away with her foot, and dragged herself to the kitchen cupboard. She rummaged around, yanking out half-empty bottles of vegetable oil and condiments until she found the bottle she needed at the back and pulled it out.

She poured the whisky into a glass, swirling it before taking a sip. The rich, smoky taste coated her tongue, and she winced. Riley hated the stuff. It reminded her too much of her Irish father.