Page 88 of Seeds of Christmas
But I don’t know how to stop.
The motel appears.
It’s the same place we stopped on the way up—cheap and rundown but clean enough. The parking lot is mostly empty. The neon “VACANCY” sign flickers in the growing dusk.
Carter pulls into a spot and kills the engine.
The silence is deafening.
“I’ll go check us in,” he says, already opening his door.
“Do you want me to?—”
“No. I got it.” He’s out of the truck before I can finish the sentence.
I watch him walk into the motel office through the windshield. Watch the way his shoulders are tight. The way he shoves his hands in his pockets. The way he doesn’t look back.
My phone buzzes again. Another text.
I pull it out, finally.
Mom:
Merry Christmas, sweetheart! Hope the research is going well. Miss you!
Dad:
Hope you’re staying warm up there. Drive safe coming home.
I stare at the messages until they blur.
They’re so normal. So cheerful. So completely disconnected from the reality of where I am and what I’ve done.
I should respond. Should tell them I’m fine. That the research went well. That everything is perfectly normal and professional and exactly as planned.
But I can’t type the lies.
Can’t pretend that everything is okay when I’m sitting in a truck feeling like I’ve made the worst mistake of my life, and I don’t know how to fix it.
Carter comes back out of the office. Two key cards in his hand.
He opens the driver’s side door, doesn’t get in. Just leans down to look at me.
“They only had rooms on opposite ends of the hall,” he says. “That work for you?”
Opposite ends of the hall.
Maximum distance.
“That’s fine,” I say.
“Good.” He holds out one of the key cards. “Room 115. I’m in 132.”
I take the card. Our fingers don’t touch.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah.” He closes the door, moves to the back of the truck to start unloading equipment.
