Dark Chocolate Cherry

EXODUS

My eyes shoot open like bullets.

It had been in the hotel. Vacation. Malibu, where she'd always wanted to go on her honeymoon but couldn't afford it. The weather was hot, on the verge of unbearable. She and you went to the beach while your father stayed in the hotel room. You didn't really like beaches, but she said you needed a tan. After about an hour or two, you both went back inside.

I sit up in the sleeping bag and walk over to the window, shoving my curtains open, revealing the sun, bright in all its godforsaken glory. I shut them instantly and go over to my suitcase, ripping it open and almost breaking the zipper.

They were playing Buddy Holly in the hotel, and you didn't know what the song was but Mom did. She waltzed down the hallway in her towel while you just stood there embarrassed. That's when he showed up.

I slam the top back down on the suitcase, then stand up and back away so fast I almost slam into the back wall. My pulse is accelerating, my breaths short and shallow.

Zack, with his blonde hair and blazing blue eyes. Young, hot, maybe thirty. He passed by Mom and called her by her name, but not just by any name, by her full name. The name no one but your father and your grandparents knew, and him. She didn't bat an eye, but rather called him by name, too. And then he told her he'd see her later, but not in a kind voice. In the kind of voice you would only use with your girlfriend.

I sort of slide against the back wall into my sleeping bag, wrapping myself in its warmth and hiding myself in the darkness, in the fetal position.

You reached the elevator. Mom said to go down without her, that she'd be right back, that there was just something that she had to take care of quickly in the lobby. But you didn't let her go alone. As the elevator door started to close, you pressed your hand on the doors to keep them from closing, and when she was just far enough away that she wouldn't notice you, you went after her.

My pulse quickens. My hands clutch the zipper on the sleeping bag, my knees are shoved up into my chin.

Three turns. Three hallways. You reached a room, room number ten. The door was beige, like all the other doors, but this one had a sign hanging on the doorknob, still twisting from the slam of the door.

The tears start to come now, drenching the sleeping bag and my face. I just let them run down my face, letting them gouge out caverns in my cheeks. I'm already used to the pain in my throat, like something wants to jump up out of me, like I might puke out my spine.

You turned the doorknob, seeing that someone left the key card inside. How strange that they left the card in the door but hung the sign. You knew you shouldn't dare open it, that you were trespassing, that you should have thought about how you would feel if she found your stash of cigarettes, and then you realized that if this really was her stash of cigarettes, you wouldn't want to find it.

I pull the fabric of the sleeping bag in closer, which is comforting now that I'm drowning in a pool of my own tears. I could suffocate in here, and I want to.

You pushed open the door. You heard moaning, a man and a woman, and you didn't want to know who they were, and you heard the sound of mouth on mouth, and all you had to do was walk down a little hallway, past the bathroom, and there they would be.

I can hardly breathe. I can feel myself suffocating inside of here, my body gasping for air because I'm holding the universe inside of me and I can't take anymore, and soon I will burst into a thousand tiny pieces.

They were on the bed. Zack was on top of her. Nothing was happening yet, but you saw enough to know what could.

I can't take it anymore. I shoot up out of the sleeping bag and just let everything come out, all of the screams and tears I've been holding back forever but never had the guts to let out.