Short Story

The Room

The room was dusty.

Funny how it’s the weirdest details you remember. Like when I was in fifth grade gym class climbing the rope and I fell and the girl in the nurses office gave me a juice box. It was mango flavour.

It’s the weird details you remember. Like last night. I was in a cheap hotel room laying in bed next to a woman that wasn’t my fiancé. I don’t know her name, or what she looks like. I couldn’t tell you if she liked to smoke or where our cloths were. I don’t know if we drank a bottle of wine, or champagne, or if we even drank anything at all. I couldn’t even tell you if the room had a TV or not. But the only thing I can clearly remember is that the room was dusty. I still feel guilty about it.

That’s not true.

That’s not the only thing I remember.

I remember that smile. The smile she had. That smile could make you feel lighter somehow. Make you forget who you are. Or maybe remember who you really are I’m not sure. That smile that peaked out from under that big ridiculous hat. That hat! I remember that hat! It was big and black, like something Bette Davis would wear. That hat that wasn’t hers. My fiancé’s hat.

My fiancé.

It’s amazing how one word can make you so happy and so sad at the same time.

She loved big hats. I remember she had a million of them; one for every holiday. She was always saying she didn’t have enough big hats. Our closet was mostly hats. She always wore them to the beach. She loved the beach.

Loved. Past tense.

She loved me too. Past tense.

God I miss her. Every day I think I hear her voice or see her face but it all vanishes quickly. I have to remind myself she’s not there anymore and she never will be again. She only exists in photographs and memories now. I’ll never hear her laugh or say my name again. It’s been years since I saw her smile. I still feel guilty.

I cried last night. In that room. That dusty room.

The room really was dusty.