A girl shows up in a new town, nowhere to go and no one to see, except one person in particular.
She hasn't told that person she is visiting, so she checks herself into a hotel, and calls them miraculously from the room's phone, which probably charges her per the minute and pisses her off. This person receives her call, from a voice message because they didn't catch it in time, and walks outside of their office building to hit redial. It's midday, and the parking lot they are loitering in is full of cars but empty of people. The phones rings in their ear, and picks up on the fifth or sixth. A woman's voice, muffled, on the other end quickly and excitingly explains their location and gives an address. She hangs up, and the caller is left with an address and an empty expression.
Back in the hotel room, the girl wonders when her guest will show. Time after time, she stands from the never slept-in bed to check the window. The sheer coverings shield her view, and although she does not want to be seen before she sees her visitor, she pushes them out of the way. The parking lot is empty. Her car, old and scratched, is alone, just like herself.
She thinks she made a mistake in using the phone. Distracts herself by slowly unzipping her suitcase, reaching around for something nicer to wear. She changes, looks at herself in the mirror from all angles, and even uses a chair in the corner of the room to better the view of herself. Notices a stain on her coat that resembles blood, or maybe ketchup, but doesn't have any memory of eating ketchup. Nervously, her fingers shaking over the fabric, she takes off the clothes and shoves them, now in a balled shape, in a corner of her bag. Changes again, this time slowly examining each piece, standing practically naked in the middle of the room, before finally picking an outfit. It is too revealing, and the bottoms are too short from their last wash in the last hotel. But, she has nothing else.
The phone rings. She gets up from the cool surface of the small wooden table she had rested against, the only thing cooling her down. The room is stuffy, worse than when she checked in, and her fingers are wet against the receiver from sweat. She answers hello, slowly, questioningly, but no one replies and the line goes dead, a soft fuzz playing in her ear. Putting the phone down, a noise of something breaking on one of the two doors in the room, causes her to practically throw it against the holder. Panicking, she decides not to answer the door, where she can see a figure through the tampered glass. The sound continues, and the door shakes.
She realizes she did not give a room number to her caller and pushes a chair against the door's handle, careful to stay out of view. She closes her suitcase, quickly, releasing the zipper twice, slowing down her attempt to act swiftly. She picks it off the carpet, gripping the handle with both of her fists and carries it to the other door, which was the way she entered, from the front desk and down a series of carpeted hallways.
That would be her escape, her thoughts worrying about getting out and not away. She still would have to get to her car. By this point the knocking has stopped, but she can still see someone outside.
Jeremy should not have known where she was, not what room she was in. It had to have been him calling on the phone, sitting in silence pinpointing her location in seconds before hanging up, satisfied. She shouldn't have picked up the phone. She shouldn't have trusted him.
Her head moves back and forth quickly, as she quietly curses herself. In this moment the door handle shakes, and she has a momentary block where she tries to hide herself in the closet. Then almost laughs at her stupidity, but stops short, frozen. The chair, pushed up against the door is shaking with the door knob, and is slowly shaken loose. The chair flips over and hits the floor. The door is opening now, with nothing stopping it but a fallen over chair. But it is not the only door opening. She is also pushing open the door closest to her, catching a glance of Jeremy, who looked the same as before. Brown hair falling loosely over his eyes, which were still blue with help from colored contacts. Fake blue, but still as penetrating as ever. Still haunting with emotion, even though she didn't see how that was possible.
He had a hand on the knob, gripping it tightly in relief, but not letting go for fear she would lock him out again. His knuckles strained white, and were bruised from pounding against the doors surface, moments before. Two arms strained against the confinement of his shirt, muscles large enough to see but not large enough to be afraid of.
She remembered those muscles, and the way they felt. This information all came to her in one glance, a quick glance as each of them stood in a doorway. This glance caused her body to go rigid, one shoe in the dimly lit hall, and one still lingering in the room. Both people half together, but still very far apart. Jeremy's lips parted, pink and fuller than most men’s, and formed her name.
"Ali..."
The noise, calling out to her, hit the room like a siren in the silence of night. But before the moment and the memory of the past could fully hit her, Ali was gone, once again.
Like always, like a thousand times before, Ali left Jeremy alone, waiting for whatever trouble they had both brought on each other. She ran, arms pushing against closed doors, trying to move at a faster pace. Her suitcase, left behind in her hotel room, held only a few of her belongings. It had happened before, and it was the third suitcase in one year's time. More of her clothes were in the back of her car's trunk, and some were waiting in a laundry mat in the next town over. A credit card was placed in the sole of her shoe and pushed against her foot uncomfortably as she ran. But she winced against the pain, and pushed past the empty desk and out the open front entrance.
Ali stopped short once outside.
The heat of the afternoon hit her body full force as she summoned the strength to run to her car. Her heart was pounding in her chest, for more reasons than her running. More because of her run in.
She caught her breath in a short second that she allowed herself to stop, and then sprinted through the parking lot, the heat from the black pavement rising to meet her. Ali saw the police car, shining white, red and blue against the quaint houses across the street, before she heard him.
Before she heard Jeremy call her name from behind her, before she pulled her hand off the driver's door handle, before she could pull her keys out from inside her shirt. She didn't think about who called the police, or how they arrived so quickly. Instead, she realized that Jeremy was calling out to her, inviting her inside and away from the police.
She changed her course quickly, scanning the road for more flashing lights, before turning, and running back to where she started. Her face grinned, as she watched Jeremy in the doorway, waiting for her. Inside, they would be able to escape the police together, like before. Inside, he would accept her apology. Inside, she would be safe.
As Ali ran closer, Jeremy pushed against the door, and for a short moment Ali wondered if he was trying to join her outside. She called for him to stop, and told him to wait for her, and pushed her feet off the concrete to move faster.
Almost there. Almost. Almost.
Ali's hands reached out to grab Jeremy, push him back inside, but she could no longer reach for him. In a short moment, Jeremy pulled against the open door, and stopped her from entering. In a short moment, Ali realized the door was slammed in her face. In a short moment, Ali peered through the tampered glass, and watched as Jeremy placed the once flipped over chair against the door handle, like she had to him.
Now, she was on the outside, alone in the heat. She pounded against the door, angry. He couldn't do this to her, he wasn't allowed to shut her out. She hit and punched and screamed, doing so until she heard the police behind her. Angry tears stained her cheeks, as her hands were pulled from the door and cuffed behind her. The balls of her feet pushed into the ground as a man in uniform pulled her to his vehicle.
And even as a hand pushed Ali's head down, and her body slipped into the backseat of the flashing car, her eyes watched the figure in the glass window. He would watch her go down, like she had done to him one year ago.
The man in uniform slammed his car door and put his key in the ignition. Ali shook her head at the hotel, at the closed door, at the boy standing on the other side, and laughed as the car reeved to start, blocking her noise from the police officer.
She and Jeremy both knew it wasn't over.
Next time, she would call 911 on him, and laugh as she watched him from a closed door.
