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She mustered up the courage to deal with the situation at hand. She got up quickly and collected her belongings. Luckily, she didn’t unpack most of her stuff. She tried to dust off all the unnecessary thoughts from her head and concentrated on the objective, which was to flee. She opened the door of her suite and made her way to the elevator. Walking down the hallway, her paranoia started growing more and more. She finally reached the elevator.
Beads of sweat trickled down her forehead and she nervously pressed the button of the elevator. Fifth floor…Fourth floor…The time it took for the elevator to come to the lower floor felt like an eternity. Suddenly she realized, “Wait, I'm just on the second floor. I could easily use the stairs. Man, I should cut off on the booze.” She quickly ran down the stairs and descended as if being chased by a ghost. The exit was just ten feet away from the counter. She could finally taste the long-awaited freedom. She felt like Andy Dufrene making his way out of Shawshank prison.
Suddenly, she felt a firm tight grip on her shoulder. She looked behind and saw a big guy in a black suit. “I found her,” the guy said on a walkie-talkie. She froze as if time had stopped, and then looked up to see a pair of stern eyes looking at her. “Ma’am, I need you to come with me,” he finally said. As they passed the counter and made their way to the corridor, two more guards joined them. “Why are you guys treating me like some convict? Where are you taking me?” Jessica yelled.
The guards led her to a gray door and opened it up. “Please stay here until further notice,” said one of them. They gently led her in and closed the door behind her. “Hey! What the hell?! You can’t just lock me up! I demand a lawyer!” she screamed in a fit of rage.
Now, here she was. From a luxurious hotel room suite to a holding cell. Maybe trying to fizzle her way out wasn’t the best idea. Even though a small logical part of her brain had warned her it’d be no good, she couldn’t help but try. Now, Jessica was arrestedandin debt, and she had no idea how to get out of either predicament. She looked around the room, which only had a bed and a sink. There was a medium-sized window at the top half of the back wall that overlooked the forest area behind the hotel. It had thick railings, so planning a prison escape was out of the options. They’d just track her down anyway.
She sat on the bed and realized the gravity of the situation. There was no avoiding this. This was no joke she could wiggle out of. Her life depended on this. She felt fear grip her chest that she had to tell herself to calm down. She had to call someone for help. Anyone would suffice—her parents, Brittney, or hell, maybe even Spencer. He was the last person she would want to call for help, but she was desperate, and right now, she required a miracle, and she would do anything to achieve that miracle. She searched for her phone in her pockets but couldn’t find it. She then realized that her phone was in the bag that was confiscated from her.Oh, damn.Now, she was really out of options. She laid down on the surprisingly comfortable prison bed and kept rummaging through her mind to find any kind of leeway.
After a lot of recollecting and trying to think of a solution, she came up with nothing. An hour passed by, and the bland gray door finally opened. A man in a navy-blue suit walked in, and he looked to be about average height. He was followed by the same two guards that apprehended her and took her to the cell.
Looking at her, the man in the suit spoke, “I am sorry for the inconvenience, Ma’am, but it has come to my attention that you have accrued a certain amount of debt, which is still unpaid. You have to clear all pending payments before you walk out of this hotel.” The man continued, “My name is Robert. I am a financial advisor to anyone who owes the hotel a debt. I work directly for the owner of the hotel.”
Jessica looked at the man and thought that she desperately needed all the help she could get, even if it was an advisor given to her by the hotel. She replied, “Well, you could’ve told me that without arresting me and throwing me into a literal prison.”
“Well, our men told me you were trying to leave the hotel in a rush, so we had to take some action. It was in poor taste. For that, I truly apologize, but we couldn’t take the risk of you fleeing.”
Jessica stopped talking. They were right. She was indeed trying to escape, so she had no counter-rebuttal.
“We were trying to reach you in your room as requested by the hotel owner, but by the time we reached your floor, one of our men saw you running down the stairs, so we sent men to bring you here.”
Jessica understood the whole situation, but one detail from that statement confused her. Why would the hotel owner personally send men to her aid? Is that person that generous, or does he treat every debtor with such hospitality? These questions popped up in her mind, but she brushed them off for the time being.
“Fine, so what are my options? How can I deal with this? I don’t have money to pay you back. The only option I have is to ask for money from my parents, who are currently in the States,” Jessica said. “Please allow me to call my parents.”
Robert instantly replied, “Yes, of course. You are allowed a phone call. I’ll have my men bring your belongings.”
Not even a minute later, the two guards came back with her bag. They handed over the bag to Jessica. Robert offered to give Jessica some privacy and said that he would be back in an hour to hear her answer. Before leaving the room, he procured his business card from his breast pocket and gave it to her.
“Please feel free to call me if you need any assistance,” Robert said as he stepped out of the room and closed the door. Jessica was back to being alone in that holding cell. She shuffled through her bag and found her phone. It still had some juice left before the battery dies down. She stared at her phone and kept staring for a solid minute. Jessica was about to call her parents for the first time since the wedding ceremony. She didn’t know how she was going to initiate the conversation. She wasn’t planning on calling her parents so soon, but she couldn’t avoid this impending conversation any longer. Unlocking her phone, she searched for her parents’ contact, pressed the “call” button, and mentally prepared herself for the unpleasant chat.
“Hey, Dad,” Jessica says in a half-scared tone after the call went through. Instantly, her father replied,” Jessica! Oh my God! Where have you been the past couple of days? Do you have any idea how worried we were? Where are you right now?”
Jessica let out a deep sigh and said, “I’m at the Hotel de Paris. Dad, I’m sorry I ran. I just couldn’t take it one more second. I…I just couldn’t.”
She could feel the sympathetic look on her father’s face. He had been gentle with her on the phone even though she knew they were worried sick, but they also understood the state she was in. After Spencer had left her at the altar, it felt like the world she was familiar with had vanished into thin air.
“I needed a way out. Call it impulsive, but this was the only escape I could think of at the moment,” she added.
“Oh, honey, your mom and I were both shocked and sad about what happened to you on your wedding day. I understand that you are devastated. It’s okay, but please don’t just leave without saying a single word. At least, give your old man a warning. Your mom was nearly going to faint, and you weren’t picking up any of our calls. Brittney had no idea where you could’ve been. None of your friends or Spencer’s relatives could give us your whereabouts. If you hadn’t called when you did, we would’ve reported you missing to the police.”
“I know, Dad. I’m sorry I made you and mom worry. I should’ve at least notified you when I arrived.” Jessica’s dad replied in a softer tone, “Well, there’s not much we can do at this point. How are you doing over there? At least, now we know where you are. That’s a big relief.”
“The place is beautiful, though I haven’t gone out of the hotel ever since I entered. It would have been an amazing honeymoon destination for us, but I’m here alone and well, honestly, I don’t feel all that great. I feel like the world is closing in on me.” Jessica said, her throat closing up as the tears threatened to spill.
“I know it must be tough, honey, and it is indeed unfortunate that you had to go through that, but now, I guess you should take some time off for yourself. This is the first step of you trying to move on.”
Jessica took a gulp and answered, “Well…umm, Dad, I mean there’s that, but I was talking about something else.”
“What do you mean?” Her dad was curious.
“Do you remember the times you and mom used to fight because of your gambling ordeals with Uncle Vinnie? I guess you could say I’ve inherited some of that from you.”
“What are you implying, Jessica? What did you do?”
“Well, I might’ve lost some money while I was gambling, drunk.” She paused for a bit and then said in a very quick voice, like the one a kid might use while confessing a crime to its parents. “…and by some, I mean $50,000. I don’t know what got over me. I guess I was dumb enough to subconsciously think that since I got such a huge blow just that day I might have extra luck with gambling and the universe shouldn’t be so cruel all to a single person and so…” she let out a breath, “…yeah.”
