tenebrific

When River showed up at another small, shady motel, she expected the same experience as always: spend a week or two alone, running from her past, and sleeping in lumpy beds, weaseling her way out of paying full price, and then leaving with half a tank of gas, a bad sunburn, and a stale bagel. Instead, she met an odd stranger with deep, troubling eyes, and an even more troubling past.

Eventually, she started to find comfort in lumpy mattresses and the sound of static, she learned how to smell salty air over cigarette smoke, and her past drifted farther and farther out of her mind. With a past as troubling as Riv's, you learn to become guarded, but she disregarded that all on the rickety, smokey balcony outside of her hotel room.

She shouldn't have.