Within/Without

chapter forty.

Simon - present day

After Val is gone, I go numb.

I loiter in the hotel room, tracing circles in the carpet. I flick aimlessly through television channels, make myself coffee that I have no intention of drinking. I walk to the balcony and I watch the sea. I come back inside, sit on the edge of the bed and imagine unzipping Val's dress and kissing her neck and her collarbones and the soft pocket of skin between her breasts. Noah calls me. He calls me a lot. He calls me so many times I silence my phone just so I'll stop hearing that terrible, shrill ringtone.

I sit and I stand and I walk and I worry. Is she home? Is she safe? Is she ever going to talk to me again?

The question in my head has evolved to an answer, and thus is twice as persistent now.

You have made a mistake.

You have made a mistake.

You have made a mistake.

I go down to the hotel's minibar once the sun has gone down. It's airy, spacey, situated right next to a glass patio where the beach is in full view. The waves are black-blue and wild, moonlight flickering across them. I hear laughter and smell saltwater and taste sweat.

I ask the bartender for whatever's strongest; she gives me something bright pink in a gourd-shaped glass. It tastes like every artificial red fruit smashed together, against a background of sharp, clean Vodka. I drink until my head spins and everything around me seems to move in slow motion and I can't feel anything anymore.

The bartender is watching me, concerned; everyone is watching me, concerned, but nevertheless I pay and make my way to the elevators, my steps dragging, the world dragging. Noah calls again—the phone's buzzing in my pocket. The lights above my head blur and my stomach churns and as the elevator doors close, I hit the floor.

Cool marble goes slick with my sweat, my saliva. I'm shaking, changing, myself for one minute and someone else the next. I'm too tired to even try to hold on to one skin. I'm too tired and I'm too numb and what—what does it matter anymore?

My head's going to split into pieces.

I call her name. I tell her I'm sorry. I beg her: "Val, please."

But she isn't here, and why would she be, and I'm alone all over again and in reality, nothing at all has changed.

Nothing at all has changed.