Page 34 of Total Dreamboat

Hope

I have never been so miserable.

It is swelteringly hot, I have no possessions or access to communication, I’m going to get fired, and I am sharing this joyful experience with a man whose very presence fills me with a singular combination of humiliation and rage.

And it’s mutual.

Felix is being civil, but I can tell he dreads it every time he has to speak to me.

He offers to drop me at our hotel before he goes to the police station, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to split up. We sit in tense silence for ninety minutes until someone is free to take his report.

I spend the time catastrophizing about all the additional things that could go wrong. What if it takes forever to get an emergency passport? What if I can’t afford to change my plane ticket? What if Felix murders me in my sleep?

I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and my stomach starts audibly rumbling.

“We’ll get food after this,” Felix says.

“Yeah,” I say, annoyed that, on top of everything else, he can hear my intestinal noises.

We leave the station and grab takeaway sandwiches from a cheap conch shack and sit outside on a bench to eat them. They’re good, but I am acutely aware that it is my finances that are making this whole thing even worse than if the tables were turned, and I had the phone and he had the money.

I’m trying not to feel ashamed. I’ve worked hard my whole life, and I’m far more fortunate than many people. But after Felix’s accusations this morning, I dearly wish I did not have to reveal to him just how tight a budget I’m on.

It looks damning.

We decide to walk to our hotel to save cab fare, since it’s only twenty minutes away. This proves to be a bad decision when a big, fat raindrop plops on my forehead.

“Do you feel rain?” I ask Felix.

“Just a drop or two,” he says.

Within thirty seconds the drop or two turns into a tropical deluge. We’re still ten minutes from the hotel and now far enough away from the city center that there are no taxis.

We get so drenched so quickly that there’s no point stopping somewhere for shelter. Instead, we dash through the dark streets, dodging the spray of passing cars, until we reach Paradise Fun Guest House.

I was worried it might be scary or disgusting given the price point, but it’s in a tidy enough yellow stucco building, and the tiny lobby is clean.

A friendly woman welcomes us, clucking in sympathy at our bedraggled state. “Hope Lanover, yes?” she asks. “I’ve been waiting for you. Last guest of the night.”

I give her my credit card and ID, and she hands me a set of keys. “You’re in room six. Go out the door and up the stairs. It’s the first door on your right. Now get up there and dry off!”

There is nothing I want to do more. The once-cute sundress I’m wearing is clinging sopping wet to my body and is so infused with sweat that it probably needs to be burned.

And then I remember I have nothing to change into.

I want to sob in frustration.

I want to sob even more when I unlock the door to our room to see it is approximately the size of a closet and contains only one double bed.

“Shit,” I hiss. “It said online it was a double room. I thought that meant two beds.”

Felix does not look any happier than I am.

“I’ll go down and see if they have something else,” he says.

“This was the last room.”

He runs a hand through his hair, which is dripping into his eyes.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he says.

I glower at him. “Be serious.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Of course you mind. It’s cement and there’s like one foot of space.” I pause. Take a breath. This is not the thing to freak out about. Not when there are too many others that might literally ruin my life. “It’s fine,” I say tersely. “We can share.”

I refrain from adding just don’t touch me . I’m pretty sure it’s clear from my tone.

“We should get out of our wet clothes,” Felix says.

“And change into what?”

He groans. “Ah. Right. Probably should have bought some T-shirts when we were charging my phone.”

I hate the idea of exposing even one extra inch of my body to this man, but I cannot remain in this dress.

“I’m going to take a shower,” I say.

“Can you hand me a towel out of the bathroom?” he asks.

I toss him one and close the door. The bathroom is grim, with a flickering fluorescent light and a shower stall that drains into a grate at the center of the room, making the whole floor wet. There’s no shampoo, only one tiny bar of soap, and the water quickly runs from tepid to freezing.

I scrub myself down as fast as humanly possible and attempt to dry off, but the towel is scratchy and miniscule. It barely wraps all the way around my boobs, and I have to drape it askew to keep my bits covered.

When I emerge from the bathroom Felix is sitting on the bed shirtless with his towel wrapped around his waist. For once, the sight does not make me weak at the knees.

His wet clothes are draped over the small window unit, and I put my dress and the bikini I was wearing there too.

(Yes— that bikini. The bright red Jessica Rabbit one I put on this morning because the other suit was dirty.

Fuck my life.) Given the humidity, there’s no chance any of the clothes will be dry by morning.

Seeming to read my mind, Felix says if they’re still wet when we wake up, he’ll run out and get us some cheap tourist garb.

This does nothing to remedy the fact that we have nothing to wear to bed tonight.

I slip under the covers in my itchy towel. He disappears into the bathroom and showers. When he comes back he turns off the lights and gets into bed beside me, also wearing a towel. He carefully shifts to the very edge of his side of the bed, which still only leaves a few inches between us.

Being so close to him raises my heart rate.

Not with lust, to be clear.

With anxiety.

I’ve felt on the verge of breaking down for hours and been proud of myself for keeping it together in front of my enemy. But we are staring down what might be days of this torture, and I simply can’t take it.

I start to cry.

I try to do so silently.

“Are you all right?” Felix asks, after about five minutes of this. He sounds resigned, like he has to ask out of politeness.

“Yes,” I say tightly.

“You’re crying.”

I wipe away the tears. Speaking to him has the effect of making me so mad that it overrides all my other emotions.

“Well excuse me for that,” I snap. “But some might argue it’s the correct reaction to being stranded half-naked in bed with you.”

“It’s not like I want this,” he says. “I didn’t wake up this morning and pray that I’d get trapped without clothes or a passport or money with a person who hates me. But look, calm down. We’ll get cash tomorrow and apply for emergency travel documents. This happens. There’s a solution.”

His rationalism makes me feel worse.

“Don’t tell me to calm down. It’s condescending.”

He sighs. “Fine. Enjoy your doom spiral. I’m going to sleep.”

I’m fairly certain he succeeds at this, as his breath steadies quickly into the somnolent rhythm I recognize from our previous nights together.

I lie awake half the night resenting his every soft snore.