#gladysposting

Artificial curls bounce as the older woman crosses to sit in the chair by the window, her unforgettable face burning into the brunette’s memory.

“You got what you wanted, didn’t you? Answers?”

The investigator hesitates to answer that, for at first that was what she wanted: answers to the troubles of this town, answers to why the Lillys acted so strange. . . then she wanted answers to the dreams that began to plague her the second night she’d slept in this very hotel room.

Then she met Gladys, and it wasn’t so clear what she wanted anymore.

The younger woman sits upright on the bed, her dark hair messed and her face still pink from desire. In the quiet space she looks at Gladys. . . . and Gladys looks right back at her, studying the face of the woman she’s haunted, taken aback by how pretty she looks in this light.

“I thought that was all I wanted,” comes the eventual confession from the other, “but then I started dreaming of you.”

Gladys knows this. She’s known this a while, but all the same it’s nice to hear it said aloud. She folds her hands on her lap, leaning back in the chair, and speaks firmly.

“And now? What do you want now? To turn me in? To win?”

The pause is short, but to the investigator it feels like an eternity before she can answer - and when she does, the weight of it all leaves her chest just slightly.

“No. Not that.”

She rises, crossing in silence to Gladys, who looks up at her with an indeterminate expression. . . and then the younger of the pair slips to her knees, her hands resting on the armrests of Gladys’s chair.

In this moment Gladys can surely see: the other woman is trembling. It’s enough to make elder hands rest on the other’s, an intentional and heavy touch - an encouragement. The brunette woman can’t speak for a moment. She swallows hard and gathers her strength, gathers the words.

They come in a whisper.