Hello Adventure

Chapter 24

I stood in front of the Gritti in the silent night and paced—head-down, limbs ridged. Fog floated off the canal in ghost-like drifts, and the back of my neck prickled with anxiety. I wasn't sleeping much this trip, and I felt disoriented, apart. It was chilly enough that my breath floated overhead, and I wished I brought a heavier coat. It was autumn now—good and proper, but the deep blue, salt-fresh air tasted nothing like the falls of the New England of my youth.

It was misting out, and the bone-chilling, brackish wetness collected in my long hair, making it stick to the skin of my face, which was slapped raw and pink by the cold.

"Shit!" I told the night, in a hard confession. "Shit! Shit! Shit!" My voice echoed off the peeling, Renaissance buildings and stone streets; it jumped crossed the canal and bounced around until it dissolved and got eaten up by the old city, full of decrepit, haunting ghosts.

Suddenly, something touched my back. I jumped.

"Sorry, did I scare you?" Dale emerged from the shadowy entrance of the Gritti. He was bundled up, much better than me; coat zipped to his chin. "Hey, are you okay?"

I shook my head.

"What are doing out here? What's the matter?" He came toward me, but I stepped backward. I couldn't possibly tell him.

"Just needed some fresh air," I tried to keep the shimmy and shake out of my voice, the telltale sign that I was so very far from fine. I was a whole bottle of little round pills away just fine—and then and there, it felt like I always would be.

"You just told me you weren't alright." Dale sounded tired. No, it wasn't that: He sounded tired of me.

Well, screw him. I thought.

"Don't worry about it." I started to walk into the night, and feeling the gap I was putting between the pills and my dry, wanting mouth already made me feel more in control. Watch me go. Watch me walk away from you. The air was thick with mist and it wolfed me up whole. I liked the feeling of vanishing, liquefying into the murky darkness.

"Hey," Dale hollered. "Where do you think you're going at this time of night, young lady?"

I didn't look back. "I need to get out of here. I just need to go."

He jogged up behind me and jerked my arm, spinning me around. "Like, home?!"

I meet his eyes, affronted by the accusation. "Hell no! I just need to get out of the hotel for a while."

"Sloane," he nagged in that wearied way. He took out his phone and stuck it in my face so that the electric-white screen stung my pupils, throbbing them to twice their size. "It's 4:30 in the morning. Everything's closed. You're shit out of luck. Have you slept at all since you got here? You don't look good."

I squinted away from the screaming brightness, shielding my eyes with my hand and began walking again, but he was trailing me. "I said don't worry about it," I repeated.

"Fine, you don't have to tell me what's wrong or anything, but just go back to bed, okay? Whatever is upsetting you will be easier to deal with after you get some sleep," he told me curtly. I slowed my gait, but when he caught up to me, he just kept walking—right past me.

"Hey! Where are you going, young man?" He didn't answer me and now I was the one scampering behind to catch up to him. "Wait up! You just said everything is closed, so where are you going then?"

He walked with stiff determination and didn't look at me when he spoke: "Oh, so I have to answer your questions when you won't answer mine?" He was faster than me, and I struggled to keep up. "I'm on my way to work. I have a big private order for a party at the Aman tomorrow night—well, for tonight really, so I'm going to start prep in their kitchen while it's still empty. Satisfied?"