Page 40 of The Heartbreak Hotel

Twenty-Nine

The house is empty when I get home. No Nan at the kitchen table, no guests closing doors or turning on showers or padding down the hallway upstairs.

I waited until I was a block from Henry’s house—out of his sight line on the off chance he was watching me drive away—to start crying.

I drove around the lake with my eyes blurred, traffic lights turning to watercolor.

I asked Goldie to match my thousand dollars and didn’t tell her where the rest of the money was coming from; when she asked if two grand was enough to fix the problem, I lied and told her yes.

Goldie hates sending our mother money, but eviction was an emergency enough for her to follow my lead for once.

It eats through me bite by bite. As I unlock my front door, as I breathe in the house—oiled wood, books, home—as I drop my keys in the dish by the stairs.

Henry sending me a wire before I could even finish asking.

A cut of the Comeback Inn profits; the money that was supposed to be replacing my rent. The bottomless, sickening shame of it.

You don’t have to help her , I’d said. And he’d looked at me as though he could see right through to my torn, red interior. Told me, You know I’m not doing this for her.

But it kept swirling in me, churning like an unsteady sea.

That Goldie was right— You do this . That she expects it of me.

That my mother does. That I give more than I get, and it lands me back here every time.

With Nate, who took advantage of me the minute I stopped paying attention; in a house designed to heal everyone but me; in a new relationship with a man who can give me his money but not his memories.

My mind turns it over, again and again, wearing the image smooth: the two of us on Henry’s living room floor, me asking about Molly and Henry covering my body with his to quiet me.

I’m awful at being shut out. I need to be needed; the longing hurts in a deep, primal place.

Henry even told me, that night at Ophelia’s—he warned me that he was bad at this and I’m still here, letting myself be devastated by it.

I hear Goldie’s voice every time I close my eyes: You do this .

I pull my favorite throw blanket off the back of the couch and bury myself under it, sinking into the cushions and pressing my face into a throw pillow. I have two days alone in the house before Nan comes back. Another day after that before my next round of guests starts to trickle in.

I started the Comeback Inn to care for people—because the part of me that knows how to nurture others has always felt like the best and truest part.

But as I breathe into the cross-stitched pillow cover, as my eyes burn with tears, I wonder if that’s all I’ll ever get to be, all I’m capable of.

If the power I thought I held by being needed is just a weakness; if I’ve sought out sadness in others so I don’t have to confront my own.

If Henry’s heartbreak is what drew me to him, too.

If I’m only ever a caretaker.

If there’s something broken and sick inside of me.

Mei calls later that afternoon, when the sun’s started to sink through the kitchen windows and I’m still on the couch, HGTV playing softly from the other side of the living room.

I have a string of texts from Goldie— I sent my 1k , and then She texted me that it’s taken care of , and then Thank you for handling.

There’s one from my mother, too: Thank you my sweet girl xx

“How was your Thanksgiving with Hot Henry?” Mei says when I pick up. I gave her the full story after our night at Ophelia’s, and I’m so grateful to the Louisa of last month for getting into it so that I don’t have to muster the entire tale now.

“I mean,” I say, propping myself onto a ramp of throw pillows. “Hot.”

Mei exhales on a squeal. “Do tell.”

“Well, we—” I hesitate. On TV, a woman in denim overalls whales a sledgehammer through her drywall. “You know.”

“Louisa Arlene Walsh. I’m thrilled .”

“Thanks,” I say, then realize how flat it sounds. I try again. “Really.”

“What’s wrong?” Mei says. I hear a door close, and picture her walking into her childhood bedroom in Pasadena. “Was it bad?”

“No.” I pull at a loose thread on the blanket. “It was the best.” I swallow and tip my head backward, squeezing my eyes shut. “Like, dangerously good.”

“Okay,” she says slowly. “So what’s the problem?”

He’s in pain , I could tell her. He’s been married, he’s been a father, he’s had a whole life I know nothing about. I can already feel myself being pulled under, wanting to heal him.

“Mei, am I just, like—” I sigh, opening my eyes again to look straight up at the ceiling. It’s the least colorful part of the house, stark and white, and all at once that makes me devastatingly sad. “Everyone’s mom?”

She hesitates. “What?”

“Henry’s had this—bad stuff happen to him.

In the past. And I’m already just, like, desperate to get to the bottom of it and make him talk about it and help him get past it and I just—” I groan, exasperated with myself.

“Goldie said this thing to me, when she was here. That I’m always taking care of other people so I don’t have to take care of myself.

With the Comeback Inn, and with my mom, and now, I don’t know, maybe that’s what I’m—”

“Did something happen with your mom?”

“Yeah,” I say, my voice going small. “She almost got evicted so we had to send her money today.” I don’t clarify who I mean by we .

“Fuck,” Mei says. “I’m sorry, Lou. That’s so stressful.”

“Yeah, thanks.” I yank the loose thread so hard that it pulls open a pinhole in the blanket. Perfect. “It is.”

“It sucks you have to parent her. And it’s shitty Goldie said that to you, especially because you being the way you are makes Goldie’s life way easier.

Does she get that?” Mei’s voice crackles with an angry laugh.

“I mean, she gets to have this arm’s-length, peaceful distance from your mom because she knows you’ll handle shit.

She gets to create these boundaries as a direct result of you being so nurturing and kind—not to mention all you do for Quinn, like taking care of him when she has work shit?

Hello? Are we operating on the same plane of existence, here? ”

I blink up at the ceiling, clearing tears from my eyes. She’s right.

“She tells you not to answer when your mom calls,” Mei continues. “She tells you not to send her money. But then there’s a crisis and who does she expect to handle it? You . Because she knows you will, because you always have, and she’s lucky for it.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “I think that’s my point,” I whisper. “I think maybe I’m a doormat.”

“No,” Mei says emphatically. “How giving you are is one of the most special things about you.”

I know Mei’s just trying to make me feel better, but it pushes on the bruise already forming underneath my ribs.

What makes me special is that I’m always willing to clean up after everyone else.

I’m terrified my only worth is the role I’m so desperate to play for the people around me—and that if I don’t figure it out soon, I might disappear entirely.

A knock on the kitchen door breaks me out of this spiral, and I crane over the back of the couch to see Joss framed in the window. I throw a wave in her direction and swipe at my eyes. “Hey,” I say to Mei, “can I call you back?”

“Of course,” Mei says. “I’m here for you, yeah?”

“Thank you,” I say, and drop my phone onto the couch. Joss is pink-cheeked in the cold, her shoulders hunched up around her ears.

“Hi,” she says, a little breathless, when I open the door. “Is it okay if I come in for a sec?”

“Of course.” I step backward, letting her dart around me before quickly closing the door against the chill. “You okay?”

“It is freezing out there.” She lifts her hands to her mouth and huffs into them.

“I’ve been trying to get the lights up, but my hands are numb.

” She always does Christmas lights in the garden immediately after Thanksgiving so we can enjoy them for the entirety of December.

There’s nothing quite so beautiful as my pine trees dusted in snow, string lights glowing through the white.

“Still haven’t fixed that squeaky door, huh? ”

“I’m used to it.” I shrug, gesturing her into a seat at the kitchen island. “I didn’t even realize you were out there. I can make you some tea?”

“That would be great.” She smiles and rubs her hands together. “I think I’m done for today, but I probably shouldn’t drive until I regain feeling in my hands.”

“Wise.” I put the kettle on and reach into the cabinet next to the sink, rifling around for my tea box. “How was your Thanksgiving?”

“Calm,” she says. Unbidden, I think, Must be nice. “My parents are in Fort Collins. My brother and his partner always fly in with the kids, but it’s an easy commute for me.”

“Lucky.” I rip the foil on her tea bag, glancing back over one shoulder. “Did you grow up there?”

“Sure did,” she says. “Jeremy—my brother—couldn’t wait to get out of here, but I’ve never wanted to leave Colorado.”

“Can’t imagine why,” I say, smiling. Joss props her elbows on the island and I lean against the counter.

“How was it with your family?” I venture. “With what you said, about your breakup—how they took it hard?”

Joss’s eyebrows tic, like maybe she’s surprised that I remember. “Oh, better,” she says. But something in her voice is breezy, and I know even before she does it that she’s going to change the subject. “How was your holiday?”

I hesitate for a beat too long—do I tell her I spent it with Henry, her boss?

Also kind of my boss? Do I lie? There’s no real reason to keep it from her, but her dismissive response about her own holiday makes me feel like I shouldn’t get into mine.

Plus, after spending the entire day rotting on my couch, I’m not even sure I have the strength.

So I only force a smile and say, “Fine.”

She tilts her head. “Only fine?”

The teakettle whines, saving me. I bat a hand in Joss’s direction as I move toward it and tell her, “My mom’s kind of intense. There was a whole drama.”

“Ah,” she says. “The holidays always bring it out.”

“Yeah,” I say on a sigh, sliding the mug toward her over the counter.

She accepts it with a smile, steam rising into the space between us. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I tilt my head back and forth, making an exaggerated show of considering.

Joss is kind and warm and honest—I know I could share this with her.

We’ve known each other for four years. But the reality is we don’t really know each other.

I didn’t know until so recently that Joss had separated from a partner; I hardly know anything about her personal life at all.

I don’t know if she has a good relationship with her own mother, or what she does when she isn’t in the garden.

And my mom feels like a lot to get into—with Joss, or with anyone.

“I don’t think I have the energy,” I tell her, honestly. “But thank you for asking.”

“Fair,” Joss says. She takes a sip of her tea. “Family’s hard.”

She doesn’t have to tell me twice.