After Ever by Jillian Eaton Page A

wide open and I’m staring back at him answer his question. My vision is blurry, as if I’m still underwater, but when I blink it clears. I am lying down on a floor, old carpet scratching against my hands and the back of my neck. Instantly I scramble to my feet and whirl in a circle. Water sloshes out of one shoe, but the rest of me is inexplicably dry.  
    “Where am I?” I ask. My mind feels fuzzy, like I just woke up from a really deep sleep and am still shaking off the effects. I take in my surroundings, trying to orient myself.
    It looks like I am in the lobby of some run down motel. The walls are white washed and plastered with tacky posters of places like Hawaii and Texas. In the middle of the room is an ugly blue plaid sofa with two matching chairs and a coffee table that tilts to one side. A fake palm tree, its plastic leaves coated in dust, sits in one corner and almost touches the drop ceiling. A water cooler occupies another corner, but it doesn’t look like any water I would want to drink.
    “You should sit down,” Sam says, gesturing to the sofa.
    I sit gingerly on the very edge while he takes one of the chairs. The sofa cushion sags under my weight. A plume of dust shoots up and with it the smell of must and mold and old things. “Where am I?” I repeat.
    “What is the last thing you remember?” Sam leans back in his chair and crosses his legs at the ankle, revealing matching brown socks. One long arm stretches along the back of the chair next to him. He looks oddly comfortable, as if he has been in this small, cramped lobby before. He also has on a new sweater vest. This one is dark green and stands out against his plain white t-shirt.
    I think about his question. What do I remember? Running. I remember running. And cold. The cold was like a knife, slicing through me right to the bone. Something cracking, like a gunshot. Falling. Water. And then…
    “Nothing.” I jolt forward and almost slide off the sofa. Panic claws at my throat, making my voice come out tinny and high. “I don’t remember, Sam. What happened to me? Where am I? How did I get here? Are we in the resort somewhere?”
    “No,” Sam says slowly, drawing the word out. “We’re not in the resort.”
    I’m starting to get a little annoyed now. What kind of game is Sam playing? “Just tell me where we are,” I demand. The feeling that I am forgetting something huge is unshakable. It dances at the edges of my mind, taunting me. Remember , I order myself fiercely. Just remember. It’s not that hard. Remember. Remember. Remember.
    Sam mutters something under his breath, too soft for me to hear. His gray eyes flick to the left and I turn my head, following the direction of his gaze. In an adjoining room, visible by a large cutout in the wall, sits the fattest man I have ever seen. His triple chins wobble and sway when he looks up, as if sensing we are staring at him. His eyes, dark and pig like, narrow to slits and almost disappear into the fleshy doughiness that is his face.
    “Get on with it,” he growls.
    I wonder if he is talking to me, but Sam nods stiffly, acknowledging the comment was directed at him.
    “Winnifred,” he says.
    “Yeah?”
    “I have to tell you something and it’s going to be kind of a… shock.”
    “Tell me what?” I ask blankly. What could Sam possibly have to tell me that would be shocking? Something about his cousin? Something about him? We don’t exactly know each other well enough for anything to be considered shocking. Do we?
    The fat man coughs. It is not a regular cough but a loud, obvious one. A hurry your ass up kind of cough. Sam draws in a breath so deep it fills his chest and pushes it out. The seconds tick by, counted out by a clock hung high on the wall behind his head.
    “Well,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck and looking down at the worn carpet between his feet, “this is harder than I thought it would be.”  
    The feeling that I am forgetting something comes back with