Page 26 of The Stranger

I’ve gotten weak. Careless. Trusting.

I move around to the nightstand and flip on the lamp, placing my leg on the bed to check my wound. The towel Walker wrapped around my calf fell off in my sleep and there are just a few pieces of toilet tissue still stuck to it, but it seems to have stopped bleeding, though there is dried blood all across my shin. I pull the tissues off and toss them into the trash before slipping on my boots and stepping outside.

I need to find him, to make sure we’re okay. That everything’s okay.

My breath freezes in the air in front of me, forming a white puff of fog. The snow has finally stopped, at least for now, and the world around me is silent.

“He went that way,” a man’s voice says from my left. I jump at the sound, turning to face it. The man standing there looks to be in his fifties or sixties, with thin, graying hair slicked back over his head and a silver mustache.

“Huh?”

“You looking for the manager? He just went that way.”

“Oh.” My heart plummets. “No, I wasn’t, but thanks.”

He shrugs, puffing on the cigarette between his lips before pulling it away and flicking the ash. “Figured your room is probably as shitty as ours. Heat barely works. No TV. I just got him to come fix some things, so you can catch him if you need anything. Before he goes back to bed,” he scoffs, rolling his eyes.

“I’m okay. Did you… Did you see another man by any chance?”

He squints, staring into space. “I can’t say that I did.”

“Okay, thanks.” I cross the parking lot, the snow crunching underfoot as I make my way toward the lobby. I need to find him, though I hate feeling that way.

After tonight, after everything happened with Craig, I swore to myself I’d never rely on a man again. Never allow myself to need a man or even want a man in the way I once needed and wanted him.

Needing someone, caring about someone, trusting someone…it makes you weak. He made me weak.

And now Walker is doing the same thing.

Then again, he doesn’t look at me the way Craig did. Craig never took care of me like Walker has tonight, not even in the beginning. He was carefree and fun above all else. Never one for anything serious. The life of the party. A protector, maybe, but never a caretaker.

He’d fight someone over me but never fight for me, if that makes sense. For Craig, it was all about possession. Walker doesn’t feel that way.

It’s strange, and honestly, it’s probably just the storm, hunger, and exhaustion driving me crazy, but I swear I feel connected to him in a way I never have.

Like he was meant to find me tonight.

Yeah, definitely the exhaustion.

Still, I want to find him.

Where could he be? Maybe he got hungry and decided to go try to find something to eat again, but Ernest said any food other than what he has for breakfast is pretty far away. Maybe he just needed to get some fresh air to clear his head or try to find a signal to call his family. I try to remember if his phone was still on the nightstand where he’d had it charging, but I’m not sure.

Maybe he’s gone to get a weapon so he can kill me.

I force the thought away as I study my surroundings, searching for him in the snow. The brightness of it in contrast to the darkness of the world around us is giving me a headache.

Maybe he left me.

My stomach goes hollow, almost as if it’s caving in on itself as I glance across the parking lot. His car is still here. He didn’t leave.

He wouldn’t.

I shouldn’t trust him this much.

I don’t trust him this much.

Looking away from the car, I check to see if the man is still there next to his room watching me. When I discover he is, I turn away quickly, then head for the lobby. Maybe Ernest has seen him or can point me in the right direction.

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