The One I Love by Anna McPartlin Page B

arrived someone took her bag out of the car as she paid the fare. She signed her name on the form that the receptionist handed her, took her key and followed the man with her bag up to the third floor and into her room. She tipped him and he left.
    She undressed, put a do-not-disturb sign on the door, and got into bed with the curtains drawn. The only time she had got out of bed in those twenty days was to pee, apart from when the maids came in. They knocked every second or third day and she’d get out of her bed and sit on the toilet while they cleaned the room. When they were finished she’d get back into bed while they cleaned the bathroom. Some days she ate something small and some days she didn’t eat at all. The television remained off and days and nights blended into one. Some days she was numb and without any kind of coherent thought; other days her mind raced somuch that her head hurt and she felt the need to put pressure on her ears. Her phone remained off. There were days that she cried rivers, other days she simply breathed in and out, in and out, in and out, each breath becoming more and more laborious until every cell in her body hurt, so that even lifting her arm was almost impossible.
    The manager knocked on her door after she’d refused the maids access for the sixth day in a row. He waited for a response but was met with silence so he knocked again. She was either ignoring him or sleeping so he knocked a third time and louder, and in her head, for the second time, she screamed at him to go away. As the manager didn’t read minds he made the decision to enter the room. He was accompanied by one of the receptionists to ensure that there was no misunderstanding as to the intention of his visit. He entered slowly with the girl following. Elle was lying on her side. He called to her. She remained still. The girl seemed to be of a nervous dispos-ition so the manager smiled at her to reassure her everything was fine. He walked around the side of the bed and Elle’s eyes were open and staring. She was pale and because the blankets were tucked under her neck it was unclear whether or not she was breathing. The girl mistook her for a corpse and screamed. Elle moved her eyes to focus on the screaming girl, whose nervous disposition had been blamed long ago on her twin brother, who had often chased her while pretending to be a zombie. Seeing the corpse’s eyes move sent her over the edge so she screamed again loudly and ran out of the room, down the hall and stairs and out of the front door of the hotel, leaving the manager alone and decidedly uncomfortable. Thanks for nothing, Sheena .
    “Are you all right, Miss Moore?” he asked.
    “How many times have I told you to leave me alone today?”
    “None.”
    “Are you deaf?”
    “I’m not deaf.”
    “I just told you to leave me alone at least twice if not three times.”
    The manager decided not to argue. “Is there someone I can call?”
    Elle slowly raised herself up in the bed; the blanket dropped, revealing her naked breasts. The manager turned red and looked away.
    “If I wanted you to call someone I would have asked you to call someone,” she said, leaving the blanket at her waist.
    The manager turned from red to a funny purple colour. He covered his eyes because he could still see her in the mirror and she knew he could still see her because she was watching him through that same mirror. “Do you like what you see?” she asked.
    “Sorry?” he said, in a voice that had gone up one octave.
    “My tits,” she said. “Do you like them?”
    The manager did like them. She had a lovely, rounded, pert, full pair but there was no way in the world he was going to say that and he wasn’t going to tell her he didn’t like them either so instead he did what any man in his right mind would do: he ignored the question. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said, “but we need to know that you are okay.”
    “Now you know.”
    “If there’s anything we