Page 15 of The Slug Crystal
He holds the door for me, and the air outside is colder than I remember.
I press my palms to my face and try to breathe. I feel hopeless. There’s nothing left to do but give up.
We walk back to the truck, silence thick between us.
Jake refuses to let us stay at the red-roofed motel attached to the Tavern. I think he might be worried I’ll keep going back to the bar and refuse to leave until I find Ben. It is a possibility that I also recognize, so I understand when he googles other places to stay in the area.
The drive to the motel is ten minutes of nothing but my own heartbeat and the static hum of the radio, dialed to a station that only plays commercials for men’s hair restoration and jingles for local injury lawyers. Jake keeps both hands on the wheel, eyes on the windshield, and his posture so stiff it’s like he’s bench-pressing his feelings against the steering column.
I stare at the passing lights and try to catalog my regrets, but the only thing that comes to mind is the image of Ben holding my snail up in the neon lighting like a trophy, as if it never even belonged to me in the first place.
“Tomorrow,” Jake says, breaking the silence. “We can drive around. Check every bar, every pawn shop, every place a snail might end up.”
“Right,” I say. “Because that’s a thing. People pawn snails all the time.”
He laughs, soft and defeated. “If he’s a real mollusk fan, maybe he’ll realize Alex is pretty rare looking, and put up a flyer. Blue snail for sale.”
I don’t reply. The world outside is empty, every building closed, every streetlight flickering like it’s two seconds from dying. It’s the kind of night that feels coated in regret. Go ahead, try and make it worse, universe. I just lost my ex-boyfriend, that I turned into a snail.
The motel has a peeling stucco exterior, the lobby lit by thehaunted glow of a vending machine and a desk lamp with no shade. The woman behind the counter takes one look at us, red eyes, slumped shoulders, Jake’s shirt stained with ketchup from the bar fries, and hands over a keycard without asking for ID.
“Breakfast ends at nine,” she says. “If the toaster’s broken, just use the microwave.”
I nod, gripping the key so hard it bites into my palm. Jake takes our bags and follows me down the carpeted hallway, which smells like old gum and the kind of cleaning product that can be bought at the dollar tree and probably isn’t safe to touch.
The room is on the second floor. The door is painted a color I can only describe as regretful beige. Inside there are two queen beds, a dresser older than me, a TV bolted to the wall, and a tiny round table with two plastic chairs. The lamp on the nightstand flickers when I turn it on, and I have to slam the bathroom door twice before it latches.
Jake tosses his bag onto the far bed, then sits on the edge, hands folded between his knees. “You want to talk about it?”
I shake my head, kick off my shoes, and flop onto the closer mattress. The springs protest under my weight. I press my face into the pillow, breathing in the scent of unfamiliar laundry and old cigarette smoke.
Jake clears his throat. “It’s not your fault, you know.”
I snort into the pillow. “I bet him. I put the snail on the table.”
He sighs. “You lost a bet. It happens.”
“Yeah, but I always lose. That’s the problem. I suck at darts, and I wouldn’t even let you talk when you tried to stop me.”
Jake gets up, walks to the window, and pulls back the curtain. The view is the parking lot, illuminated by the harsh white security lights. He stares for a minute, then turns back, expression unreadable.
“I don’t think you lose as much as you think,” he says. “You just remember the losses more.”
I want to believe him, but my entire body is made of self-recrimination and the taste of defeat.
He crosses the room, sits on the edge of my bed, close enough that I can feel the warmth from his thigh.
“We’ll find him,” he says. “I promise.”
I close my eyes, exhausted, and my chest is full of regret and heartache. “Do you hate me?”
He laughs, the sound low and sure. “Emma, I could never hate you. Even if you turned me into a mollusk.”
I smile, barely. “You’d be a slug. No shell.”
“I’d probably still beat you at darts. You suck,” he says, and the tension snaps, just a little.
We sit like that for a long time. The two of us breathing in sync, and the TV muttering infomercials in the background.
