Page 28 of The Heartbreak Hotel
I rush toward her, and stop short when I see what she’s pointing at. An enormous wolf spider, brown and furry and damn near the size of my palm, perched on the edge of my vintage Turkish rug. One leg twitching into the tufted fringe. I let out an inhuman scream and dart around Henry, back in the direction I came. When I grab on to his arm to hide behind him,he looks down at my fingers—then back up at me. I let go immediately.
“Sorry,” I say, flexing out my hand. I think of that first day in his office, the way his forearm tensed when I reached for him. All the ways I touched him in the basement—his chest under my palm, his lips under my fingers.
“Kill it!” Mei wails, and I blink away from Henry. He swallows. “Don’t leave me here with it, Lou!”
“What do you want me to do?” I say, as Henry takes a step toward her. “Comein therewith it?”
“I don’t know!” She’s still hopping up and down. The spider starts to move, skittering onto the hardwood floor. I yelp and take several steps backward. Mei hollers, “Henry, kill it!”
Henry turns toward me, eyes connecting with mine for half a breath before he plucks the glass and grocery list out of my fingers. For one terrible flash of a moment, I think he’s going to make me catch the spider with my bare hands. But then he lifts the glass to his lips and knocks it back, downing what water was left, and flips it upside down to trap the spider in the middle of the living room floor. When he slides the grocery list underneath, lifting the caged spider into the air, Mei repeats, “KILL IT.”
“If I did that,” he says, making for the back door, “Joss would have my head.” He uses his hip to nudge open the squeaky screen. “They’re good for the garden. And gentle, as long as you don’t bother them.”
“As long as you don’t bother them,” Mei repeats. “What bothers a spider?Breathingnear it?”
But I’m watching Henry: as he takes the steps into the garden, as he looks both ways and then makes for one of our biggestpines, surrounded by bark. A bough of Russian sage obscures his body as he squats along the gravel path and lowers the water glass to the ground. When he tips it to release the spider, the midday sun catches the glass and sends light streaking across his face, pinched with focus. The spider scurries away, and Henry rests one elbow on his bent knee to watch it dart off to its new life.
When he glances back toward the house, our eyes meet through the screen.Thank you, I mouth. His lips lift at one corner, an almost smile. I rub my fingertip against my thumb. Feel the ghost of his lips on the skin there.Louisa.
“Um.”
I turn, and Grace is standing on the landing in her robe.
“Is everything okay down here?”
Thirteen
Grace stays four nights, saysnot a single other word to me, and leaves a five-star review before I’ve even had time to wash her bedding.
“See?” Mei says when I show it to her. “Even just your presence makes people feel better.”
“I don’t think it’s me,” I say, and she waves me off.
But it’s the house. It’s always been the house—first for me, now for Mei and Grace. And for Rashad, who shows up two days after Grace checks out, in a tracksuit the color of aluminum foil. When he rings the doorbell, he’s nearly reflective in the window through the door.
“You must be Louisa,” he says, thrusting a lime-green suitcase into the entryway. “When I tell you I’movercometo be here.”
“I am,” I say, taking the duffel that he holds out to me. “Are you Rashad? How was your journey?”
“Nightmarish.” He lowers his sunglasses and takes in the house, dark eyes flicking from room to room. “Have you everflown after spending the entire night crying? I’ve never been so dehydrated in my life.”
“Let’s get you some water.” I motion him toward the kitchen. “Then I’ll show you to your room and you can get settled in.”
“The last thing I need is to settle.” He harrumphs into an island stool like a deflating balloon. “I cannotbe alone right now—I swear. I’ve been holed up in my apartment like a vampire, charging up my depression batteries with the full moon. I can’t see my friends because they’re allhisfriends, too, but if I spend one more minute alone I will truly join the undead—if I haven’t already—do I feel human to you? Is this a healthy ninety-eight point six or what?” He tips his forehead at me over the counter, and I rest the back of my hand lightly against it.
“Confirmed human,” I say, and slide a glass of water toward him. “Though I understand not feeling that way, especially right after a big loss. It can be disorienting.”
“No shit.” Rashad drinks the entire glass in one long gulp. Then he closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s like I’m relearning who I even am, which is so pathetic.”
“It’s not pathetic.” I refill his glass at the fridge. Distantly, I hear Mei’s voice—she’s upstairs on a work call. “It means you cared.”
“Too much,” he says, accepting the second glass of water. He’s young: early twenties, maybe. Hair buzzed close to his scalp, dark eyes fringed in gorgeous black lashes. “Way, way,waytoo much.”
“Why do you say that?” I lean my hip against the counter, settling in. He’s the opposite of Grace: no preamble, right into the heart of it, like he’s been waiting for someone to tell all this to.
“Because it wasn’t mutual.” Rashad waves his hands into the space between us, like it’s obvious. “Because he dumped my sorry ass the second shit got hard.”
“So, there was a fight?”
