With our fancy check in hand, we got two more drinks to go and went back to our room. We had two beds, which was good because I didn’t really trust sharing a bed with Camden. I just don’t know who I mistrusted more–him? Or me?
After I sent Gus an email updating him on our whereabouts and checked both our phones for new messages (Snooty Neo for Camden, but no one else), I scrubbed off all my makeup, slipped on my boxer shorts and camisole, and crawled into my bed. The sheets were stiff, the comforter had a bizarre smell, but it would do. I couldn’t say I felt exactly safe, even though I knew there was security in the hotel, and even though our door was triple locked. I wondered if I’d ever feel safe with Camden by my side, or if I was going to live in a constant state of anxiousness. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.
“Ellie,” he called out into the darkness. I had been awake and thinking for such a long time I had assumed he’d be asleep.
“Yes?”
“Tell me the story about your scars.”
It was as if the room got darker. Colder. Heavier.
I pulled the smelly comforter up to my face, wishing I could hide.
“It’s not a fun story.”
“I don’t want a fun story,” he said. “I want the truth. I want to know what happened.”
I chewed on my lip, wishing I could buy time, but there was nothing but time on long nights like these.
“I think you owe me that much,” he added softly.
And that was true. I did owe him at least that much. I brought my knees up to my chest, full-on fetal position, and told my story to the opposite wall. It was easier than facing him in the dark. It was easier knowing he was behind me.
“Once upon a time,” I began, “there was a young girl. The girl lived outside of Gulfport, Mississippi. She didn’t call the place home but she’d been there for two years and it was as close of a home as she’d gotten before. In her home, she believed her life would turn out better and that her family would start acting like a family again. Her parents, or at least her dad, had gotten a real job at the casino. They promised her they were done being grifters and wanted to do things the right away. The girl believed them because they were her parents. She had always believed them, even when they were asking her to steal the wallets of moms at children’s birthday parties or distracting clerks while they stole pointless crap. She’d seen the movie Paper Moon and was happy someone had made a film about her life, that she wasn’t alone. One day, her mother was really angry. Her mother was always an angry person, but this day she was furious. The girl was scared. She loved her mother, but she especially loved her when she was in her rare happy moods. When she was angry, the girl was afraid of her. Even the dad was afraid of her.
So one day the mom tells the dad and the girl that they’re going on a little adventure. Just out to dinner to see an old friend of hers, a man called Travis. Now, the girl knew a lot about this Travis friend of her mother’s. She had seen him around the house when her father was at work. The girl was old enough to suspect her mother was having an affair but too afraid to ever ask her mother about it. If her dad ever suspected anything, he was too timid and too kind to say anything about it.
And so they went out for dinner at his fancy house in the north of town. At the last minute the mother told the girl she was to sit in the car and wait for a few minutes. With a fat black marker she wrote down a combination of numbers on the girl’s hand and told the girl she was to go around to the back of the house, go in the second window, and once inside go for a certain door. In the room she’d find a safe. She’d use the numbers on her hand to open the safe and take the money out. Then she’d leave the way she came in.”
I paused.
“I’m listening,” Camden said quickly, sounding enthralled.
I took a deep breath and went on. “The girl did as she was told. But she was so nervous that she opened the wrong door. She went into a very black room and before she knew it, there was no ground beneath her. She fell down a flight of stairs and landed on the cold hard floor, crying out from the fall. It took her a few minutes to snap out of it, to realize what had happened. But it was too late. The commotion brought people to the top of the stairs. The light flicked on. It was Travis, with her parents behind him.
He came running down, waving his arms. The girl’s parents were quick with excuses, ‘We couldn’t find a baby-sitter,’ the mother said, ‘we told her to wait in the car.’ They yelled at the girl but it wasn’t enough for Travis. He helped the girl to her feet, grasping her unkindly around the wrist, and he looked down at her hand. He saw the combination to the safe written on top. It was all over.”