Her growling stomach stirred her from her sleep. She blinked a couple of times as she couldn't remember having dozed off. In her sleep she had somehow migrated toward the center of the bed. She sat up and looked at her watch. It was almost half past eight, she had slept for two hours.
She slid off the bed and walked over to the other part of the room where she found the room service menu. She ordered the bistro beef burger with a side of fries and a beer. As they said it would be an hour, she took the opportunity to take a shower.
As the hot water ran down her body and she washed. Her hands stopped on her scars, and along with everything she had learned today, a tidal wave of physical and emotional pain filled her. She slid to the floor and started to cry. The crying turned into uncontrollable sobbing until there were no more tears left to cry.
She stepped out, even more drained than before she had slept, dried off, slipped her black lace tanga back on and put the robe over her half-naked body. She dried her hair leaving it a tad damp to dry off naturally before sitting down in the sofa.
She had been watching the news when room service knocked on the door. She ate her burger and fries and drank her beer as she passed the different available channels in review, without much interest.
Her phone buzzed and she opened the message to reveal a picture of Conrad and Sylvia at the prom. She smiled upon seeing how beautiful and happy Sylvia was. Jessica had done an amazing job with her hair and makeup and if you didn't know it, you would never have guessed she was fighting cancer.
Conrad was stunningly handsome in his suit and a lump formed in her throat. She had missed it. She had missed a chance at a prom for the second time in her life. She had missed it with him. It was painful and it was all his fault. If he hadn't been exonerated, none of this would have happened.
She wanted it to stop hurting. The physical and emotional pain were too much for the state she was in. She eyed the minibar from the sofa. She stood, walked over, opened it, and knelt in front of it, inventorying its content.
She wasn't much of a drinker. She and alcohol didn't really mix well. She wasn't an aggressive drunk but got very quickly drunk. As she took two small bottles of vodka and a medium sized bottle of Jack Daniels, she figured there would be no harm done. She was alone in a hotel room, and it would help her forget everything and sleep like a baby.
By ten pm, she had drunk the vodka and had almost finished the Jack Daniels. She was a bit light-headed but still managed to follow the plot of the movie she had rented whose title she couldn't remember, but it didn't matter.
Her head turned slowly toward the door, almost in slow motion as a knock interrupted her focus on the antagonist's monologue.
"Housekeeping."
She furrowed her brows. Did housekeeping still come to turn down the bed in hotels? She shrugged to herself. Maybe she'd get a mint out of it.
She stood, checked that her robe was fastened properly and tried to walk straight toward the door. She put a smile on her face as she pushed down on the handle and opened the door.
After a few seconds her smile vanished and even though she was somewhat plastered, anger rose from a hidden part of her. She stood paralyzed in the doorframe her eyes on him.
"Hello Julia. Can we talk?" he said as he eyed her.
"Hell no," she replied still unable to move or close the door. "Why? So, you can rub in the fact that you are untouchable!?"
As if those words had been enough, pushed by an unknown force, she stepped back and shut the door as she pivoted and returned toward the side table to finish the bottle of Jack Daniels in one gulp.
He had some nerve showing up here after everything he had done! How did he even know where she was? Ha! It must have been the FBI or the NSA that had provided him with the information. Bunch of traitors they all were.
She heard the door close and gave a sigh of relief. At least he had no choice now but to walk away. If he didn't, she'd call the cops.
"It wasn't supposed to happen that way."
Her drunken eyes widened slowly upon hearing his voice behind her. She whisked around and saw him standing in his tight-fitted burgundy t-shirt, black jeans, and boots.
"Get out of my room!"
He looked at the side table.
"You're drunk," he said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.
"Very insightful of you, did they teach you that at the FBI when you joined the informer program!?"
She walked over to the mini bar. This was an alcohol-induced illusional nightmare, it was the only explanation. He wasn't here, her mind was playing tricks on her. Maybe if she drank one more, it would have the desired effect and make her fall asleep. She'd wake up in the morning with a horrible hangover, but at least he'd be gone.
She clumsily grabbed the Johnny Walker Black label bottle and tried to unscrew the cap as she stood.
"I think you've had enough to drink," she heard him say as his hand took the bottle from hers.
She turned on her heels to face him and took a step back stumbling.
"Don't stand there and give me your self-righteous attitude. You are the reason I'm in this state!"
She took a step in his direction as he put the bottle down on the countertop. When she reached him, she pounded on his chest with her fists.
"You tried to kill me. No, let me correct that, you left me there to die!"
He grabbed her hands by the wrists before they could strike him again.
"I didn't have a choice."
She narrowed her eyes. "You didn't have a choice? If we were on the same team, you could have chosen not to pull the trigger."
He pressed his lips together.
"For fuck's sake Barrett, you shot me. Twice! Then left me and Conrad there to die in a blazing inferno! And you had no choice?!"
"Kim was on to you. I knew he was on his way down and he was going to get rid of you, no questions asked. My plan was to neutralize you by shooting you in a way you'd survive but Kim would have thought you were dead. I would have informed the hospital and they would have found you. But then Hawkins showed up and I hadn't planned that. Furthermore, you stepped in between me, and Hawkins and I tried as hard as I could to minimize the damage. I didn't know Kim was going to burn down the place. You've got to believe me."
She wriggled her wrists out of his arms and freed herself from his grasp.
She stepped back fighting back the tears.
"Minimize the damage?!"
Then without even thinking, she untied the belt of her robe, with such ease, she wondered if she had suddenly sobered up, and let it hang at the sides. She took each side of the robe with her hands and flung it open, apparently not giving a care in the world that she was topless.
"Does this look like minimal damage to you?! I underwent hours of surgery. I lost my gallbladder, a kidney and part of my small intestine because of you! I almost bled out on that table, because of you!"
He turned his eyes away from her.
She took a step in his direction.
"No, you don't get to look away. Look at me Barrett! Take a good look at your version of minimal damage. It's a masterpiece in all its beauty."
"I never wanted to hurt you. When I realized that you were on to Red Rock Medical and Kim, I was so angry."
"Why? Because I was the one to get something done about it while you were twiddling your thumbs and having brunch and mimosas, sitting on information you knew could put them away!?"
His eyes shot in her direction. "No, that had nothing to do with it!"
"Then tell me why?"
She saw his jaw twitch… She was hitting a sensitive spot and it felt good.
"You wouldn't understand."
"After everything I've been through, you owe me this much. You owe me the truth."
He said nothing in return but lowered his eyes on her abdominal scars. It pained him deeply.
She closed the robe and tied the belt around it. No longer able to look at her scars, his eyes didn't have a choice but to shift their focus on her alcohol induced rosy cheeks and red plump lips.
"You're a coward," she slithered out to him as she pivoted and started to walk away toward the bedroom, indicating that they were done, and she wasn't going to be pleasantly walking him to the door. But it was without knowing that what she had just said had triggered something off inside of him, sending him into action.