Page 8 of The Hitman

“Grazie,” I say back, wondering how to get the hell out of this thank you loop.

He smiles indulgently at me and shakes his head. “Prego,” he corrects. “That is how you say, ‘you are welcome.’”

“Oh.” When I realize what he’s doing, I’m genuinely excited and then shocked that I’m feeling something besides…well, nothing. “Prego,” I stutter hesitantly.

“And now you know a new word in Italiano,” he beams at me.

I laugh, and it sounds weak and dry to my ears, which is accurate since that’s exactly how I feel. But some feeling is better than nothing. That’s a good sign, right? A sign that I’ll be okay? I hope so, and I cling to that hope desperately.

I turn toward the hotel as the driver and a porter unload my suitcases. I vaguely wonder if this is one of the stages of grief or if I’ve reached the phase of deliriousness that comes with exhaustion and dehydration. Maybe those feelings are the same.

Either way, when I step inside the lobby and look around, I feel as if I’m in a dream. Everything looks exactly as it had on the website, just maybe a bit smaller than I’d imagined, but not in a bad way. Quaint. That’s the word that comes to mind.

I think Ryan might actually have hated the adjustment to scale, and that makes me happy in a vague sort of way just before an uncomfortable realization hits me. As much as he used to complain about the ostentatiousness of fame and celebrity, Ryan sure did love the attention. And now that I think about it, that explains the reality tv show he said he didn’t want to do, and why he cheated on me with another reality tv star and an entertainment reporter. Attention. Ryan is an attention whore, and ‘quaint’ isn’t really his bag. He’d apparently do anything for just a bit more attention, even torpedo his life and career.

“He’s shameless, attention-seeking trash.”That’s what Zoe had said the day after she met him during an argument when I’d said things I still regret all these years later. What a terrible way to realize that she’d clocked him right from the start. God, what might my life be like right now if I’d listened to her?

I can feel myself spiraling as I think about it. My vision blurs with exhaustion and a few tears at the corners of my eyes. My head is pounding harder again, and the feelings of regret and self-recrimination are breaching the barriers of my mind.

Okay, I am definitely dehydrated.

“Checking in, madam?” a woman calls to me from the front desk with a bright smile on her face.

She’s perfectly professional and put-together in the way most people who work in hospitality usually are. Looking at her makes me feel grubby and pathetic. Well, grubbierandmorepathetic, which is a feat because I also feel like whatever shit steps in when it’s having the worst day ever.

“Y-yes,” I whisper, walking toward her. “Yes, I am.”

“Name, please.”

I swallow.

When Shae took me to the airport to go on my honeymoon sans husband and with purloined credit cards, she clearly didn’t think this through, and neither did I. I was devastated, what was her excuse? Never mind, that doesn’t matter now. What were we thinking? We really should have taken a beat and considered if it was the best idea to go on a trip where all the arrangements had been made in my ex’s name because he was footing the bill and made far more money than me. What if he canceled all the reservations while I was in transit? What if he canceled his credit cards after the expensive sunglasses purchase? Why is this the first time I’m thinking about these possibilities!?

I swallow a wave of bile in my throat before I can answer in a shaky, halting voice. “Ryan… Ryan Fuller. Mr. and Mrs. Ryan Fuller.” I feel so fucking sick even saying those words that I have to wrap my arms around my torso just to stave off the feeling that I’m going to fall apart again.

The concierge’s eyes widen, and she seems to take me in completely all over again. Her mouth falls open in an excited smile that just as quickly crumbles into chagrin, taking away any hope I had that news about my disaster of an almost-wedding hadn’t made it to Europe.

I cringe back.

“Ah…yes, signora. Of course,” she says, clearing her throat and slipping back into her mask of professionalism. “May I have your passport, please?”

I fumble, trying to find the small pouch with all of my important travel documents inside my purse. I push the garter I’d ripped off in that just barely clean bathroom in LaGuardia — that smelled so strongly of disinfectant that I wasn’t sure if my eyes were watering from pain or the chemicals — until I find my passport and slide it across the desk.

“How…um… How would you like to pay for incidentals?” she asks with a red face and eyes that refuse to meet mine.

I don’t know what it is about the fact that she can’t look at me — even though I haven’t done anything wrong — but it lights a tiny fire under my ass, and I’m pissed all of a sudden. I strain my neck to catch her eyes. I feel myself frown so deeply that I imagine my mother raising her head in alarm at my future wrinkles even though she’s thousands of miles away. In that moment, all my sadness and exhaustion burns away.

Is this how the stages of grief work? Not the linear progression they tell you, but a kind of frenetic hopping from one emotion to the next and back again like an emotionally overwrought bunny? If so, I am killing it, and I also would like to be let off this rollercoaster. But right now, I ride the wave of my anger. I use it to do something I’m sure I’ll regret at some indeterminate point in the future that hardly matters because it’s not right now. I reach into my purse and open my wallet. The sunlight filtering through the windows glints off Ryan’s embossed name on his black American Express card as I hand it over. Pettily, my mood lifts.

The woman looks at the name on the card and then at me. I don’t smile — I don’t have that much energy — but I don’t shirk her gaze either. I remind myself that I’m not actually doing anything wrong because technically, I’m still an authorized user on all of Ryan’s credit cards. I don’t allow the sliver of reality that this could have changed in the last twelve hours to surface. Lots of things could have changed since I punched him and his little girlfriend in their hotel room, but I can’t consider that. Besides, Ryan’s not organized enough to have already contacted his accountant. I hope.

I square my shoulders and prepare to tell the concierge that this is all on the up-and-up and to just run the card when she does, without any prodding from me.

We spend a silent, tense moment waiting for the computer between us to respond. I chew the inside of my cheek and try not to look too much like a scammer, and then I hear the sound of a printer turning on. The concierge smiles at me as she slides Ryan’s card back to me with a receipt.

“Please sign here,” she says in her friendliest, vaguely British accented English.

It’s a small, ridiculous thing, and yet, knowing that Ryan will be paying for the next week of my depression-drinking and eating and massages does actually ease some of the ache in my heart. Even if it’s only temporary, I sigh in relief and then instantly feel so tired I worry I’ll fall asleep in the middle of the long-overdue shower that’s first on my list when I make it to my un-honeymoon suite.