I shove the bathroom door open, not sure why I’m upset with Alice but something about her prying bothers me.
I know what I’m about to do. I understand the risks and the benefits and I certainly do not need her to try to sway me otherwise.
I miss feeling close to someone. The way my body reacts to the touch of a man, any man. I know this guy isn’t Elliot and right now that doesn’t matter to me.
“You ready?” I ask as soon as I happen upon the table. Elliot gives me an almost startled look, but then responds by standing up and taking my hand in his. We leave the bar together, leaving Alice and James behind.
“I assumed you were bailing when you headed to the bathroom with your sister,” Elliot finally says as we near the hotel.
“Nope,” I say, quickly. “Let’s do this.”
My lips crash into his before the door to the hotel room even has a chance to close. There’s nothing gentle about it and Elliot responds just as intensely. His hands holding my face firmly, his lips pressing hard against mine, everything about us is desperate.
Before I know it, my clothes are off along with Elliot’s and his mouth is exploring my body. Our breathing is coming hard and fast as his tongue and teeth graze the sensitive skin below my ear. I can feel his hot breath against my neck and it causes a shiver to run down my spine.
“Are you wishing I was him?” Elliot asks lazily as his mouth finds my breast.
“No.”
Yes.
“I’ll make you forget him,” he whispers in my ear and I moan in response.
No, you won’t.
“You’re not mine, but tonight you will be,” Elliot says, this time his tone is seductive and it almost works, but it’s just not enough.
I’ll never be yours.
It doesn’t stop me from following through with what I set out to do. This dulls the pain of not finding Elliot. It makes it easier for me to cope and makes me think there is hope for me to move on and find someone that could replace him. Someday.
You watch from a distance, like it isn’t your life, because you hope to forget. But it never fades, the memories, they’re always the same despite the change of the person.
He’s all I picture, all I remember and all I ever want. Something about my memories will never change, yet I need them to. I need them to disappear.
So I’ll keep doing this because it’s my only salvation from myself.
I wake the next morning alone and completely fine with it. As I lean over to grab my phone from the nightstand, I find a note next to it. It’s Elliot’s number and him letting me know he had to work early this morning.
It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing between us, and today, Alice and I will move on to another city and another Elliot.
The whole process starts over and with each city, with each person and each time I don’t find Elliot, I know the whole thing is over.
It was always a long shot, a pipedream, something I clung to when it was blatantly clear to everyone around me and subconsciously to me also, that I’m holding onto something that doesn’t really exist.
Chapter Seven
Alice and I arrive in California, crossing the border into the small town of Crescent City. Neither of us has said a word about me hooking up with Elliot back in Astoria and I don’t think it’s something that will be brought up. I won’t question Alice on what she did that night and she will extend the same courtesy.
This is our last stop, so I hand Alice the file and she begins to look through the paperwork.
“This one should be easy,” she says and I nod in agreement. “He’s a police officer and according to the schedule in the file, he’s on duty for the next twenty-four hours.”
Again I nod and Alice looks over at me wondering why I’ve been so quiet.
“You seem different,” Alice says, still staring at me.
“I think it’s over,” I say and the tears start immediately.
“What do you mean ‘it’s over’? It can’t be over. We have one more stop to make. You’re gonna give up now?”
I can’t believe how appalled Alice sounds and it makes me cry harder. It makes me understand that this has now become my identity. This search has become who I am and I want my life back.
“I’m done, Alice,” I sob. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t do this anymore.”
My hands are shaking and my chest is heaving with each ragged breath I take in. I don’t know why I’m so upset, but I do know that this time I’m officially done. I’ve said it a million times before, but I can’t continue on this same path. It gets harder and harder as the years pass.
“Okay,” Alice responds, hesitantly. She pauses a few seconds before asking, “So, are you even going to see if this last one is him.”
“It’s not,” I answer, angry with myself and angry at the world. I feel like I’ve suffered for the last twelve years because of my own stupidity and probably because of bad karma or some shit.
“Why don’t we just check into the hotel and you can see how you feel about it in the morning?” It’s posed as a question that at the moment I don’t care to answer. Alice is being sympathetic and while I know she realizes the time I’ve spent on all of this, she also wants me to see it hasn’t been in vain. Yet it has. All of it.
“I don’t fucking care right now, Alice,” I snap back and she nods her head. Honestly Alice should tell me to go fuck myself. She’s spent nearly the last two weeks driving across the country with me, wasting her time, in search of someone I’m never going to find.
“I’ll get my own room tonight,” she says, softly. “I think you need some time alone.”
“Whatever.”
I roll over the next morning to find the sun peeking through the crack in the curtains, practically blinding in the otherwise dark room. I rub at my eyes, knowing it is far later than I’m used to waking up. I must have needed the sleep, because when I look at my phone, I find it’s well after eleven in the morning. I haven’t slept this late since college and the thought makes me giggle a little. It’s hard to believe I can still sleep until lunchtime given that I wake five days a week at six a.m. for work. I’m sure Alice is wondering what the hell I’m doing and is probably completely bored out of her mind.
I send her a text letting her know I’m just now getting in the shower and will meet her in the lobby of the hotel in a half an hour. I’m behind on the day already, so I need to move quickly if I’m going to finish up the person on my list. Oddly enough, I don’t hear back from Alice right away and I assume she’s already dressed and wandering the streets of Crescent City or she’s hit the beach.
When I haven’t heard from her by the time I’m finished showering, I begin to wonder if everything’s okay. While Alice can be flighty, she isn’t one to completely ignore me. Despite our differences and in the day and age of cell phones, I’ve always known that Alice is alive and well even if she was on the other side of the world. This isn’t like her.
She could be mad at me for the way I behaved yesterday, but I highly doubt that. She understands the stress I’ve placed on myself and while I didn’t mean to take it out on her, sometimes that happens, especially when she’s the only one around I can vent my frustrations toward.