A phone vibrates from across the room, the tone inaudible from its resting place beneath the trousers he’d dropped. As he rolls off her, she can feel the cheap motel mattress. A cold trickle of sweat carves a path down her leg before seeping into the sheets. Turning her face away, she buries it in the pillow, inhaling the scent of sweat and aftershave. The man turns, the phone in his hand still buzzing insistently, like the last mosquito of summer.

“Aren’t you going to answer?” she asks in a tone that gives him permission.

“Yeah…it’s the office. Though you’d think they’d be able to survive a day without me.” He zips up his pants before stepping into the hall, but not before leaving a kiss on the back of her shoulder. She lets the lies flow over her like water over stones. It’s his wife on the other end of the line, but it’s not guilt or knowledge of the truth that is wearing her down.

Clutching the sheets around her in a makeshift robe, the woman stands. Her foot sinks into wet latex. At least he used a condom this time. For a moment she stands still, thinking about the time when he hadn’t, and what had followed, thankful for this smaller mess. Wiping her foot on the carpet she begins the half-hearted search for the thong she’d been wearing the night before, but when her efforts prove futile she decides to ignore the problem by pulling out the spare cotton bikini she keeps in her purse. As she slides the seamless microfiber over her ass she finds herself wondering what it would be like if she had a husband waiting at home. A suspicious one who would call her angry, asking, ‘Where have you been!?’ All she has is out in the hall, reassuring his wife that yes, the trip is going well, the seminars are boring, but he’s meeting some new clients, and the food is delicious.

Stolen moments from stolen lives. She feasts upon these scraps. Her heart racing, stomach fluttering, breath catching. And that’s just when she sees his name on the caller I.D. She burrows back beneath the covers.

It was only hours ago that she’d been perched on this same stiff motel bed waiting for his arrival, the initial excitement mirroring that of a child waiting for Santa or the Tooth Fairy, if that excitement was tainted with a feeling of sick anticipation. She would fidget to keep from pacing. Wondering, should she sit in the chair instead? Which pose seemed less eager, less desperate? When he arrives, she opens the door so that it slams into the stopper, bouncing back to hit her ankle as she moves aside to let him in. Each time she sees him, he looks a little less like the boy she knew at sixteen. His manner today is shuttered, paired with a smile not quite reaching his eyes. But she reminds herself, if he looks any less than what she remembers, then most likely neither does she. She says nothing to shatter these quiet discrepancies and wishes he was kind enough to do the same.

“You look beautiful.”

She flushes, betrayed by the welling in her eyes over this pretty lie.

“How is it you sound just the same?” She cranes her neck. It’s a strain to even brush his jaw with her lips. “Could you be any taller?”

“Maybe you’ve gotten shorter?”

But then his arms are around her, and there is only the air rushing in her ears and the feel of his hands on her skin. For a long time nothing matters, though when he falls asleep she will twist off his wedding ring, loosened with sweat, and set it down gently on the bedside table.

At sixteen he’d promised her forever. She’s learned ten years later to accept “sometimes” and to not ask promises from those who cannot keep them. Over the years she’d told people that it was true, you never could forget your first love—though of course you could try. When he moved away she didn’t follow him, but even a thousand miles couldn’t keep whatever they had from continuing to fester. Even when they had moved on and “grown up”, even when she was with another man, she couldn’t help but be overcome by the occasional bout of nostalgia, that cloying and elusive phantom which holds the power to tamper with fact and memory. She remembers how his teeth had grazed at collarbone. “So beautiful.” It had to have been nostalgia, she reasoned, that allowed the embers of their rotting love affair to reignite so.

When he called her the first time after five years, she’d found herself preparing how to answer, preparing herself to be able to hear his voice again. That rich timbre had always been her undoing, its tones cause enough to make her tremble. Their first reunion had been nerve-wracking. At twenty-six she felt more self-conscious of her appearance than at sixteen. She feared he wouldn’t recognize her if it weren’t for her eyes and hair, these features both memorable and fully preserved. She ran her fingers through the limp brown strands as she waited, her eyes fixated on the dark green door.

Now that he’s preoccupied, she is left to her thoughts. This happens more often than not, so it’s no surprise that after much reflection she is able to admit that perhaps her greatest disappointment lies in their conversations, or lack thereof. When they did speak it was nothing but small-talk, mundane exchanges and forced laughter. Inside she was screaming for him to tell her everything she wanted to hear when she was sixteen. Then she realized that sex was all she could expect, all she could count on.

She remembers the pang of bewilderment that accompanied this revelation.

Now there are no more surprises. After this many years she knows him as well as she knows herself. It is this knowledge that allows her to know that every time he begins to straighten his clothes, or gets a certain preoccupied look on his face that he’s not thinking of her at all. She knows during these moments that she is white noise. And she also knows that this should make her feel cheap, and any normal person would put an end to this sick arrangement, but she finds that she can’t. She won’t. She lives for the moments when she is all he can see, all he can think about. She knows that for a few moments here in this motel she is what is beneath him, next to him, in front of him, and until the inevitable moment when his phone rings, it is good enough.

She doesn’t leave the bed again until she hears the shower running. Enough time to have a cigarette out on the balcony. The sun warms the skin not covered by his t-shirt, and she relaxes as the nicotine takes effect. She’s just begun to doze when the sliding door opens, and she can feel him standing behind her. Leaning back, she rests her head against his legs and watches a family with a stroller pass on the boardwalk underneath, their children squealing.

Letting a hand dangle down through the slats, she flicks the ash away, watching its descent, wondering whether or not it will fall onto their happiness.