Page 37 of The Other Side of Apart

“No. I wanna get so far from here.” My jaw aches from being clenched for the last four hours. “She has a wall covered in pictures of herself.” I picture the gallery of model photos. “She doesn’t have room to love anyone but herself, and my dad told me I’m turning out to be just like her.” I pause when my voice wavers. “But I won’t be her. I can’t even stand to look at her because I hate that we look so much alike. She wanted to give me away after knowing me for ten months. Who does that?” Silence crashes, a little of my emptiness spilling into the room. “We’ve been here four hours too long, and I’m so sorry I brought you here,” I whisper to the bedspread and pull Mei back into my arms.

“Where do you want to go?” she murmurs.

I close my eyes. Back to Stanford. Back to my spot on the team. Back to the life we left this morning or the one before that when I didn’t know Olivia. I want the future with Mei, but more than anything I want something solid around us, and right now, nothing is. “I don’t know where, but we’re getting out of here.”

The sun has yet to show up, but we’re still on I-15 in the middle of the desert, headed east. Toward somewhere. Anywhere. Nowhere, maybe. Not a studio apartment on a college campus that meant we’d made it somewhere and definitely not a soccer field thatprovedI’d made it somewhere. Away from L.A. where I never would have come if I’d stopped to think for one second.

When my eyesight blurs, I veer off the road and park under the lit canopy of a lonely gas station. I hang my helmet from the handlebar and shove the gas nozzle into the tank to top it off. Mei waits with it, and I go inside the convenience store, striding to the back and snatching two sodas from the fridge. I throw them on the checkout counter and rip some cash out of my wallet.

The cashier scans the sodas, glancing at me. “Long night?”

“You could say that,” I answer, shoving the change into my wallet. “What’s the nearest city?”

“Vegas. ’Bout an hour and a half or so…”

“Thanks.” I grab the sodas and push the door open with my shoulder. Mei sits sideways on the motorcycle, watching me walk toward her, fingers spinning her ring in her lap. I avoid her eyes, afraid of what mine might say. “Guess we’re going to Las Vegas,” I say, handing her the soda and throwing my leg over the seat. I start the bike so at least there’s some noise between us.

She hesitates before scooting behind me, her hands gripping the seat instead of my waist. I tear out of the gas station, thankful for the darkness of the deserted road and the way the yellow stripes rush at us.

When the haze of city lights stretches across the horizon, I speed up, eager for a distraction and a target for my attention.

Buildings pop up on either side of the road, and I turn off the interstate. Never been to Las Vegas, but I gotta figure out where we’re going so my mind will stop pulling me backward to where we’ve been. Or comparing the looming mega-resorts to our safe, calm Stanford apartment. The never-ending asphalt and cement of Las Vegas to the soccer field turf.

My mind shifts to dark thoughts, and I shut it down, stopping at the first pay-by-the-hour motel we come to. I don’t wanna think about staying for longer than that. But for now, I’m done thinking. Done with roads and motorcycles and Mei with all the extra space she’s giving me on this seat. I just wanna go to sleep and wake up back in Stanford as if none of this ever happened.

CHAPTER 18

This motel is where people go to die.

We’d rolled into the pay-by-the-hour motel this morning at 5 AM, ripped off the comforter, and laid on top of the sheets, staring at the ceiling. The room was sweltering from the non-existent air conditioning, but it was frigid in the space between Marcus and me.

I’d fallen asleep at some point, and when I woke up, Marcus was gone. For a split second, I thought he’d gone back to Stanford without me. But then I’d seen the note on the nightstand, saying he’d gone to look for a place we could stay long term.

I’d showered, making sure not to touch the sagging walls or filthy curtain, and by the time I was done getting ready, Marcus had come back and told me he’d found a place. We’d grabbed our bags and jumped on the bike, not looking back.

In the late morning light, the streets of Las Vegas are gray and weary, like all excitement and energy drained when the electrical switches were turned off at sunrise. Now everything’s getting beaten by the sun, including us, as Marcus parks the bike and we shuffle across melting asphalt toward the slumped stucco building.

We trudge upstairs to the second floor and stop at room 252, its door dented in the perfect shape of a fist. There’s space at the bottom of the door for any and all desert creatures to crawl inside and join us. Or crawl out, depending on what currently lives inside.

We’re about to find out.

Marcus unlocks the door and swings it open to reveal just how much $69.99 per day gets you in Las Vegas. My eyes jump across the cracked linoleum and threadbare carpet. The dingy walls. A sagging bed on a rusty frame that perfectly matches the feelings we’re carrying with us. The quilted bedspread looks like it’s been here since the 1970s and the sea green accent wall is chipped and faded. There’s a tiny TV mounted on the wall, slightly crooked. A miniature kitchen is shoved in the corner, and the bathroom door is next to the beige fridge, which doesn’t match the white two-unit stove or black microwave. I’m afraid to see the bathroom. I will spend any amount of money necessary on cleaning supplies and shower shoes. We’re definitely going to need shower shoes.

It’s a perfect hideout for drug dealers, prostitutes, or a couple on the run from a released rapist, human trafficker, and felon. Nick will never think to look for us here. No one will. If we die from murder, rat bites, or the secondhand smoke stuck to the walls, no one will ever find us.

“Ahhh.” Marcus tosses his bag on the wobbly, faux wood table. “Home sweet hell on earth. So appropriate.”

The anxiety that’s taken up residency inside me flares, burning up my throat. “Not true.” I take a breath and plaster on a smile, pushing away the tension wrapped around me. “It’s way better than the last place, and we’ll make it great! Make it ours. We know we can. It’s better than?—”

“Stop, Mei.” He closes his eyes, shakes his head.

“Stop what?”

His eyes snap open. “There’s no way to spin this into something good, because it’s not,” he growls, his jaw clenching.

“I wasn’t trying to make it?—”

“Yes—you are.” His voice rises and so does my heart rate when Marcus swears. “You’ve been doing it since we left Stanford—trying to put a positive spin on everything, like you can fix it with words. But there’s nothing positive about any of this. If Nick came walking by right now, I’d kill him.”

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