The Misfit

She fell into a deep sleep, and it surprised me to see how peacefully she rested. She was so full of energy, it seemed impossible she would ever be able to turn it off, but there she was, out for the count. Something told me it didn’t happen often. She didn’t seem like the type who was easily able to just sit back and relax, and some part of me hoped I would be able to provide her with a little peace, at least for the night.

She could have this hotel room, I had no need of it. I didn’t want to bother hanging out here any longer. I needed to put as much space between myself and this girl as I could – I knew she wasn’t good news, even if my body was aching to slide back into bed beside her, wrap my arms around her, and hold her close. I needed to be stronger than that. I needed to focus on what mattered, instead of just what I wanted to do.

I pushed those thoughts aside and headed to the bathroom to clean myself up. Even if she woke, I doubted she would try to stop me. Both of us, from the moment we ended up on that plane together, had known this wasn’t going to last much longer than a night. How could it, when neither of us would be honest about who we were, how we had managed to cross paths?

Besides. Whatever she was caught up in, I was sure it wasn’t anywhere near as dangerous or serious as the mess I found myself in right now. I needed to get her out of this before she wound up hurt, or worse. She hadn’t signed up to do more than spend a night with me, and I didn’t intend to do anything that would pull her into the slipstream of the chaos I was a part of.

I slipped out of the bathroom again and glanced over at her. She was still sleeping on the bed, totally out of it – I wanted to reach out, just brush her hair back or something, but I knew it would have been overstepping the mark. She needed her rest. And if she woke up, I had no way to know if she would come after me. I didn’t want to pull any baggage along with me, through the mess of what I was trying to survive.

I left the key on the bedside table and carefully opened the door. A shaft of light entered from the corridor outside, my last chance to turn around and climb back into bed with her and let anything that happened, happen.

But I knew it wasn’t that easy. No matter how much I wished I could hide from reality a little longer, it would still be coming to find me. And besides, I didn’t even know this woman – was I really going to jump back into bed with her, when I had serious doubts about the kind of person she was? I was sure she was up to her neck in something shady, and if I found out about it, I would be obligated to turn her in, no matter how much I wished I could just leave her to whatever games she was playing.

I stepped out the door and quietly shut it behind me. That was the last I would see of her. Arianna, if that even was her real name, and I doubted it. She had hidden everything about herself from me, and I had done the same, the two of us nothing more than ships passing in the night.

Which meant it should have been easy for me to walk away from her. But, even as I left, I found myself aching to turn back around, and join her in bed once more.