He opens the door.
Moving in from the balcony he notices the clock, which barely makes a hum, is far too loud for him to endure. He unplugs it and looks to the phone, hoping that somehow the two are connected. That if he can stop worrying about the finite amount of time he has here, that they have left, she'll call. She'll realize it too. That it's better to be with him, even if it frightens her, than to let the days ebb away.
He smirks to himself, our poor hero, thinking "they?" Of course after their last encounter there is no "them". She's made it clear. She's run off at the end of every encounter. The one time he got to see her, truly see her, she left under a lie.
Part of him knew she was going. Part of him still thinks she couldn't have been so cruel. All of him knew that wasn't her residence. There's nowhere in the world that a twenty-something surgical student/beginner of her practice, would set down roots like that. Even if she came from money. Even if...
Thoughts can race faster than the world spins. And there is no thought as friction-less as 'if'. 'If' has wings that flutter so fast you can't see a single beat of them. It is useless thinking, and our hero knows that; but what else is he supposed to do with the whole day where he cannot leave the room? She has no other way to reach him. He has no other person to see. So he orders room service for every meal. He showers with the bathroom door open in case she calls. He sits on the balcony; paces on it; moves back to the bed; and flips on and off the news.
He becomes even more of a caged animal. More of his whispers. More of his darkness. More of the things he fights beneath the surface.
'Maybe' is just as fruitless as 'if'. But he asks himself... Maybe this is what she wanted all along?
The phone rings twice before he answers it.
"I will not be seeing you tonight. I thought I should tell you that much."
When he asks her what happened, to tell him, that he deserves an answer — there is only the dial tone.
He looks out at the city; bathed in the sun so that it looks red, and waves goodbye to the Sun, his only friend. Then he lies in bed, hands behind his head and asks the ceiling what his next move should be. When it answers he wonders just who he's becoming.
Then he laughs because he knows he's not becoming anyone. He's reverting.
There are few things as easy to accept as a bribe from a foreigner. Even in the hospitality industry you can always deny it. Allegations are common from finicky customers. He imagines this is more true for Americans; both because they are under more scrutiny; and because there is some truth to the notion of the 'Ugly American' traveler.
So he explains his situation to the girl behind the desk again, this time pulling out his wallet.
"The problem," he says, "is that I keep getting calls that are very short. Very quick short. I feel that there is a problem on the other end of the line but I can't quite make it out."
"Yes sir. You said, sir." Her tone is even. Dutiful. She's a good girl and he's a bad man from another country.
Then, he opens the wallet and pulls out a large bill of local currency.
"But I haven't just been called once." He places it on the counter. "But a second time;" He repeats the process. "And then a third tonight." And the third bill comes down. He stares at her face in such a way that says that he's not even looking at the money. It's not even there.
"I just... I don't know what I..." She looks to the money, to him, to the money.
"Oh that's a very easy answer. See, someone here does your tech. Probably a guy, yes?"
She nods.
"Well, he's going to have access to a switchboard. And that's going to have access to all the numbers that have called me in the last week. If I had that number, I could solve the problem. And if I could solve the problem, I could sleep really, really well. Forget all kinds of things that are weighing me down." He pushes the money over to her now, still not breaking eye contact.
