Room Service

by Maren Stoffels

  “Is Fender here?” Kate peeks around the door. “Oh, there you are. Everything all right?”

  “That’s what I was just asking.” Lucas gives me a worried look.

  “Have you been taking pills or something?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Where’s Linnea?” asks Kate. “I thought she was with you.”

  Linnea. So they haven’t spoken to her yet. I still have a little time, but if they see her it’s over. My thumbprints are on her throat like a signature.

  Lucas narrows his eyes and looks at me. “You’re acting so weird.”

  Everything is spinning—just as if I had actually been taking pills.

  “We’re about to go to the restaurant,” says Kate. “Dad’s booked a table for us at six. Are you guys going to get changed?”

  Food? How am I supposed to eat? I can’t exactly tell them about the letter when we’re in the restaurant, can I?

  Lucas points at his bright-green T-shirt. “What’s wrong with this?”

  “What do you think?”

  “What about the yellow one, then? The one with the palm trees and the letters on it?”

  Kate sighs. “Fender, can Lucas borrow a shirt?”

  I take a deep breath. “I want…”

  “Don’t be awkward.” Kate sighs. “It’s just for one night. I’m going to go see if Linnea is in our room. See you soon!”

  Before I can say anything else, she’s headed down the hallway. I turn to look at Lucas, who is pulling one of my shirts out of my backpack. He squeezes his muscular arms into the sleeves and looks at me expectantly.

  “How does it look?”

  At that moment, there’s an ear-piercing scream from the hallway, which penetrates every fiber of my body.

  Kate.

  Lucas and I hurry out and see Kate standing frozen in the doorway of her room. She’s staring, wide-eyed, at something in front of her.

  Linnea—that’s the first thought that goes through my mind. Has something happened to her? Is it because of what I did?

  But then I see what’s going on. In the girls’ room, someone has written words in big letters all over the walls. Even the windows are covered in black marker.

  The room is one giant suicide note.

  Slowly, we enter the room, one by one.

  The words I so wanted to keep hidden from Kate are now grinning at her, in giant size.

  This isn’t right. I still had time left.

  “ ‘It’s always dark for me’?” Lucas reads out loud. “What is this?”

  A different part of the letter is written on every wall. They’re pieces of a puzzle that combine to form a horrifying image, an image I have two copies of inside my pocket.

  “Fender. Lucas.” Kate’s voice sounds far away. “Look at this….”

  I follow her gaze to the wall behind the four-poster bed. Those letters seem to be extra big.

  KATE, FENDER, AND LUCAS.

  MY SO-CALLED BEST FRIENDS.

  “What?” Lucas looks back at us. “How can…It’s from…”

  It’s like he’s run out of words.

  “It’s from Isolde.” Kate looks at me with wide eyes. I wish I could act surprised, but I can’t.

  “This is my suicide note.” Lucas’s eyes dart to me. “This isn’t real, is it? She can’t have…”

  For a year now, I’ve wanted to stop time and rewind everything, but never as much as now.

  I want to go back to Kate’s last birthday, when the four of us were sitting around the campfire and I was playing the guitar.

  I want to change what happened, write a different ending to that night, but it’s impossible.

  Kate runs to the bathroom and I hear the sound of vomiting. This is just the beginning. She only knows a small part of the story.

  “Fender?” Kate calls from the bathroom.

  When I enter the bathroom, I’m shocked by her gray face. She looks at me like I just kicked her when she was down.

  “You knew about this?”

  At first I can’t make any sense of Kate’s words, but then I see the mirror above the sink. There’s a message, written in the same black marker, in the neat handwriting that I’ve come to recognize.

  You thought I’d give you time

  to show them the letter yourself.

  Stupid Fender,

  do you really think you can trust me?

  I just hope she’s thirsty.

  What have I gotten myself into? I’m in a hotel room with a boy I’ve known for only a few minutes.

  But it feels really comfortable, like I’ve known Claus for months.

  There’s something about him that calms me. As if, for a moment, Fender and the stalker don’t exist.

  “Want a drink?” Without waiting for an answer, Claus opens the minibar and pours two glasses of soda.

  I look around. Room 311 is on our floor, but at the opposite end of the hallway. There’s a closed suitcase under the bed, but that’s all. The comforter is completely smooth and unwrinkled. Claus probably didn’t jump up and down on the bed like Kate and I did.

  Will we ever do anything like that together again? As soon as I tell her the truth about Fender, Kate’s going to take his side. And if I don’t say anything, I’ll have to go on acting normal when he’s around. I don’t know if I can do that. Fender has backed me into a corner.

  “Hey, you keep things nice and neat, don’t you?”

  “I like to have things organized.” Claus passes me a glass and sits down across from me. “Okay, now tell me. Why do you want to go home, why are you crying, and why are you spending so much time away from your friends?”

  “That’s a lot of questions.”

  “After that, it’s your turn to ask questions.” Claus smiles. “Don’t worry. You can say whatever you like. It’s safe with me.”

  Claus is right. He only knows my friends from that drinks party at the law firm. He isn’t part of the gang, who have known one another so much longer than I’ve known them.

  And then I start talking. It’s like opening a stuffed closet, as all the words come tumbling out over each other.

  “Kate and Lucas have always been nice to me. I feel comfortable with them. But it’s different with Fender. There’s something in his eyes that frightens me. Something dark. He sometimes stares at me so intensely that it’s like he can see right through me. But then he’ll just look past me, like I don’t exist. Or it’s the opposite, and he gets really aggressive toward me. Whenever I say something in class, he always has to disagree. It’s wearing me out. Normally I’m good at standing up for myself, but not with Fender. He scares me.”

  “Scares you?”

  “Don’t laugh!”

  Claus looks serious. “I’m not laughing. I just think it’s…strange. He should be a friend of yours, not an enemy.”

  I nod. “It’s because of Kate. He’s her best friend, and she’s my best friend. So we’re stuck with each other.”

  “Sounds complicated.”

  “It is.”

  “But why does he scare you?”

  “Well, he just tried to strangle me.”

  Claus’s eyes widen behind his glasses. “What?”

  I suddenly understand how crazy this must sound, so I sweep my braid, now dry, over my shoulder and lift my chin.

  “Here.”

  “I can see the bruises.” Claus curses quietly. “That’s not right. You need to make it clear to him that he has to stop.”

  “But that’s the whole problem. I’m too scared.”

  “Why did he get so mad?”

  “I asked him the wrong question.”

  I don’t mention Isolde. Claus might feel guilty because he was the one who sent me in that direction.

  “So now you w
ant to go home because of this…Fender?”

  “Not just because of him,” I admit. “I’m being stalked.” Now that I’m saying it out loud for the first time I can hear how unlikely it sounds. “It might sound crazy, but…”

  “Not at all.” Claus takes a swig from his glass. “Why do you think it sounds crazy?”

  “Well, no one has any reason to stalk me. I don’t have a disturbed ex, I’m not a celebrity, I’m…”

  “Pretty.”

  Suddenly I don’t know where to look.

  “I didn’t mean that in a creepy way,” says Claus. “But if you ask me, a lot of guys would think you’re pretty.”

  I think about Lucas, who flirts with me all the time. Could he be one of those guys?

  “Maybe,” I say quietly.

  “And the fact that you’re so modest makes you even more attractive, of course.”

  I turn the glass around in my hands.

  “And what’s the story with you?” I say, changing the subject.

  Claus looks up. “What do you mean?”

  “Like, do you have someone?”

  There’s a long silence. The only sound is the quiet buzzing of the minibar.

  When Claus starts talking, his voice sounds different. Soft and cautious.

  “A while ago, I was really, really in love.”

  I notice that he’s talking in the past tense. It feels as if there is suddenly a huge distance between us, much bigger than the few feet between the chairs we’re sitting in.

  “You shouldn’t go home. You need to stay here.” Claus looks at me. “If you go home, this stalker’s sure to follow you. And Fender will be back in your classroom as usual on Monday.”

  “So what should I do?”

  “Confront Fender. Tell him what you think of him.”

  “Do you think that’ll work?”

  “You’ll feel better if you get it out. Will you give it a try?”

  “Yes.” Hesitantly, I stand up. I’m not going to say anything to Kate and Lucas for now. I want to talk to Fender first.

  “Are you leaving already?” asks Claus. He sounds disappointed.

  “Yes, but thanks for the chat.”

  “Wait a minute.” Claus comes and stands between me and the door. For a moment I think he wants to say something, but then he holds out my glass. “You didn’t have your drink.”

  I look at the glass, but I still need to pee.

  “No, I’m good, thanks,” I say. “You have it.”

  The perfect opportunity: gone!

  I throw the glass at the wall.

  Shards of glass fly everywhere.

  The soda, mixed with the sedative, fizzes on the carpet.

  “I’ve got to get this off.” Kate is scrubbing at the wall over the bed with her sleeve.

  “Kate…,” I say. “There’s no point.”

  “You knew!” she suddenly screams. “You knew she was dead and you didn’t tell us!”

  The words hit me like bullets. Kate’s right. I know that. I should have told her yesterday, right after the harbor.

  “It’s not true, is it?” Kate looks at me, pleading. “Tell me she’s not dead.”

  I can see she’s going through the same roller coaster of emotions as me. From fury to grief to denial and back again.

  “I’m sorry,” I say quietly.

  Kate collapses, wrapping her hands over her head like a helmet. She rocks gently back and forth to the rhythm of her sobs.

  I want to put my arm around her. I want to say that it’s all one big nightmare.

  “How long have you known?”

  I jump at the sound of Lucas’s voice.

  “Since yesterday. I got a letter.”

  “You’ve known for a day?” Lucas looks at me in disbelief. “Do you have the letter here?”

  I take the note and the copy of it from my pocket and give one to Lucas and the other to Kate.

  While they’re both reading, I gaze around the room. The words seem to come off the walls toward me, closing me in.

  “Who gave you these letters?” Lucas looks at me. “Was it her?”

  I shake my head. “Room service came to the door when you were at the pool. That was the silver dome that you saw in our room. Someone in the hotel is doing this.”

  The words struggle to come out, like syrup from a bottle.

  “I found the first one on my doormat yesterday. He must have sent that one too.”

  “He?” echoes Lucas.

  “Someone who knew her.” I take the death notice from my jeans pocket. “He says we murdered her.”

  The color drains from Lucas’s face. Cursing, he turns around and clutches his hair.

  Kate looks at me through a haze of tears. Her mascara has left lines down her cheeks.

  “You should have told us!” Kate gets to her feet. Standing on the mattress, she’s more than a head taller than me.

  Then she punches me in the chest.

  “She was my best friend. And now she’s dead.”

  I don’t want her to say that. I don’t want to hear it.

  “Stop it.”

  “Why?” Kate hits me again. “It’s true, isn’t it? She’s dead because of us! Because of what happened last year!”

  Inside my head I hear the scream again. It’s always there, like background music.

  “Stop,” I say. “Please.”

  “She’s killed herself, Fender. She’s dead. Dead. Dead. And soon everyone’s going to find out. What do you think my dad will do when he sees this room? I might as well announce the news to everyone right now.” Kate cups her hands around her mouth and starts shouting. “We’re the ones who killed Is—”

  “No!” With a shout, I push Kate down onto the bed and clamp my hand over her mouth. Within two seconds, I am sitting on top of her, pushing her arms down into the mattress with my knees.

  “You need to shut your mouth,” I growl.

  The fury in Kate’s eyes gives way to astonishment. The way she’s looking at me…

  That’s how she looked too.

  That night.

  Staring up at the stars above.

  There was blood. Blood everywhere.

  Sticking to my hands, my face, my hair.

  In the shower that night, the water turned pink.

  It trickled between my toes and down the drain. I was literally washing her away.

  “Fender!”

  Lucas’s voice brings me back to my senses. Beneath me, I see Kate staring at me with wide eyes.

  “Get a grip, you idiot!” Lucas shoves me off Kate. I fall off the bed and hit my head on the wall.

  I watch Lucas put his arm around Kate and help her up. She’s not screaming now, just crying, without making any sound.

  Her black hair is messed up, and there’s a cut on her cheek where I scratched her.

  “You can’t do this,” Lucas says, glaring at me. “I get that you’re not yourself, but we’re all in shock!”

  First I attacked Linnea, and now Kate. What am I doing?

  “Who delivered the room service?” asks Lucas.

  I rub the back of my head. “I don’t know. I think it was a man. I only heard his voice.”

  But was it a man? The voice was so muffled that it could just as easily have been a woman. And I certainly can’t guess how old they were.

  “You don’t know?”

  I shake my head.

  “Linnea…”

  Lucas and I both look up at the same time.

  Kate’s eyes are huge. “Linnea doesn’t know about any of this.”

  Lucas curses. “We’re not going to involve her. She has nothing to do with this.”

  “How do you intend to keep this hidden?” I say, pointing at the walls. T
he words seem to be turning blacker and blacker.

  “We have to clean it,” says Lucas. “We need a bucket of soapy water and a bunch of scouring pads. The housekeepers here have all the stuff we’ll need.”

  “It’ll be one big disaster area…”

  “Do you have a better idea?” Lucas snarls at me.

  I shake my head. He’s right. We have to try something.

  “We’ll keep Linnea away from here for now.” I know how impossible that sounds. This is her room. She could be here any minute.

  “Will you go find the cleaning stuff?” Lucas says. “I’ll stay with Kate.”

  Normally it would be the other way around, but that was before I turned into a monster.

  Kate still hasn’t looked at me. She’s sitting on the corner of the bed, as far away from me as possible.

  I should say I’m sorry, but the words get stuck in my throat.

  I struggle to my feet and walk to the door.

  “Fender?”

  I look back. Lucas has a strange look in his eyes. I’ve only seen that expression on his face once before, in the hospital a year ago. Kate and I were hugging, and over her shoulder I saw Lucas looking at me in exactly that same way.

  “Yes?”

  He pauses.

  “Be careful.”

  “Okay.” I look back at Kate, who is rocking slowly back and forth again. Can I ever put this right?

  My legs shaking, I step out into the hallway and close the door behind me.

  How am I supposed to persuade a housekeeper to lend me her things?

  Maybe I should just go to the nearest supermarket. But where is it?

  “Fender?”

  Startled by the sound of my name, I turn around.

  There, standing in front of me, is Linnea.

  “Linnea.” Fender gives me a strange look. “Hey.”

  A few strands of hair are sticking out of his bun and his shirt is crooked.

  As always, there’s an awkward silence between us, but this one lasts even longer than usual.

  “Is Kate in there?” I ask finally.

  “No.” Fender blocks the way. “No, she’s not.”

  His eyes are darting nervously back and forth. What’s going on? Is he scared I’ll tell Kate and Lucas what happened outside?