Chapter 5: Resolution
Ace rolled off her, the movement sluggish, his body a vessel of lead and shame. The hotel sheets were cold and tacky against his skin. He stared at the stucco ceiling, its popcorn texture swimming in his blurred vision.
Candice didn’t move. She lay perfectly still, one arm flung over her eyes. The only sound was her breathing, a shallow, hitched rhythm that wasn't right. It wasn't the breathless pant of passion; it was the tight, controlled inhale of someone holding back a scream.
“Candice?” His voice was a ragged thing.
“You said you had a method.” The words were flat, detached, muffled by her arm.
“I know. I’m—”
“Don’t.” She finally moved, pulling her arm away. Her eyes were glassy, fixed on the ceiling. “Just don’t.”
Chloe bounced lightly on the edge of the bed, the springs creaking. “Come on, you two. It was hot. It’s fine.” She reached for a half-empty bottle of champagne on the nightstand, took a swig. “A little souvenir. Bethany will have a story no one else gets.”
“Get out.” Candice’s voice was a low vibration, a wire pulled taut.
“What?”
“Get the fuck out, Chloe.” Candice turned her head, and the look she gave her best friend was pure, unadulterated venom. “Now.”
The giddy smile melted from Chloe’s face. She looked from Candice to Ace, who had pulled the twisted sheet over his hips, and back. The reality of the room, the sordid stillness of it, seemed to land on her. She stood up, brushing invisible lint from her dress.
“Fine. Party pooper.” She tried to sound flippant, but it fell flat. She grabbed her clutch from the dresser and paused at the door. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
The door clicked shut, leaving a silence so profound it felt like pressure in Ace’s ears. He could hear the distant thump of bass from the club downstairs, a mocking, cheerful rhythm. He pushed himself up to sit on the edge of the bed, his back to her. The pile of cash on the dresser seemed to glow, accusing him.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “She pushed me, and you locked your legs, and I just… I lost it.”
“I know what happened.” Candice sat up slowly, pulling the ruined dress up to cover herself. The fabric was stained and torn. She didn’t look at him. “I felt it. Every bit of it.”
A cold, clinical dread was settling over her features, replacing the shattered passion of minutes ago. She swung her legs off the opposite side of the bed, putting physical distance between them. “I’m allergic to birth control. The pills, the implant, the shot. All of it. My body rejects it. Gives me clots.”
Ace felt the blood drain from his face. “You said you assumed… you said I had a method.”
“I assumed you’d pull out!” The facade cracked, her voice rising to a desperate scrape. “That’s the method! That’s what you do! You don’t just… finish inside a stranger days before her wedding!”
She stood up, unsteady on her feet, and paced to the window. She pulled the curtain back an inch, staring out at the city lights, a silhouette of panic. “My fiancé. Jake. He’s… he’s careful. We’re careful. Because of the allergy. We use condoms. Every single time.”
Ace’s mouth was dry. The math was terrible and immediate. He saw the tuition statement on his desk again, then imagined a pregnancy test, a doctor’s office, a confrontation with some furious guy named Jake. “Is there… a morning after pill? Can you take that?”
She let the curtain fall closed, shrouding the room in dim lamplight again. “It’s a high-dose hormonal pill, you idiot. It’s literally the same thing I’m allergic to.” She laughed, a sharp, ugly sound. “It could literally kill me. Or a stroke. Take your pick.”
The finality of it hit him like a physical blow. There was no undo button. No fix. He had possibly, probably, gotten a bride pregnant during her bachelorette party. The weight of it crushed the air from his lungs.
He stood, his legs wobbly, and started gathering his clothes from the floor. The fireman pants, the ridiculous hat. Each piece felt like a costume from a play that had ended in disaster. He dressed quickly, the silence between them now a suffocating entity.
“I should go,” he said, his voice hollow.
“Yeah.” She didn’t turn around.
He looked at the money. Six hundred dollars. Blood money, now. He couldn’t bring himself to touch it. Letting it sit felt like a sin; taking it felt worse. He left it on the dresser.
He was at the door, his hand on the cool metal of the handle, when she spoke again. Her voice was small, stripped of everything.
“What’s your real name?”
He paused, his forehead resting against the door. “Alex.”
A beat of silence.
“Alex.” She tested the sound of it, as if making it real made everything else real, too. “If I’m… if anything comes of this. I need to be able to find you.”
He didn’t ask what she meant. He knew. He fumbled in his discarded jacket pocket, found a crumpled receipt and a pen. He scribbled his name and his number, the digits blurry under his trembling hand. He walked back to the center of the room and placed the paper on the nightstand, next to the empty champagne flute.
He couldn’t look at her.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, the words utterly insufficient.
He opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. The cheerful, antiseptic brightness of it was a slap. The door shut behind him with a soft, final click, sealing away the chaos. He walked quickly, the patterned carpet muffling his footsteps, towards the elevator, towards the rest of his life that now felt irrevocably split into a before and a terrifying after.
Back in the room, Candice stared at the slip of paper. ‘Alex’, and ten digits. She picked it up, her fingers leaving damp prints on the receipt. She didn’t cry. She walked into the bathroom and turned the shower on as hot as it would go, steam billowing out to fog the mirror, trying to scrub the scent of him, and the stark, terrifying possibility now living inside her, from her skin.