Oh, Atlanta.

Atlanta, Georgia.

How I can't wait to be long fucking gone from here.

Though, I must confess, this hotel is at the very least tolerable. Which in reality feels like getting strangled by a telephone cord to Huey Lewis and the News' "Hip to be Square". Still a completely and utterly terrible fate that I'd probably wish upon a few of my enemies, but at least you get something palatable for contrast.

"Please tell me I don't have any messes to clean up already."

Here comes the other drag to this trip. Kara's decided that she needs to chaperon me like she was my mom or something, all in hopes that I don't die of alcohol poisoning or whatever obvious lie she spun up for Jacob. There was some ulterior motive to this, there had to be.

One thing I had to give her credit for: it worked. I haven't even thought about touching the bottle of Stolichnaya that I picked up before we checked in last night.

"Nope!" I almost shout with excitement as she shuffles her way down the last two stairs and rubs her eyes, sighing in relief.

Yes, stairs. Our hotel "room" resembled more a condensed house than a hotel room, even giving us two floors. It's, kind of sad when hotels have nicer set ups than our apartment but hey, that's how life works.

Way too much space for us two, though. Even the woman at the front desk had something to say about it, though thankfully she kept her remark confined to a puzzled look until we left for our house/thing. Then I'm certain she was calling us crazy or something.

"Thank fuckin' Christ. I was worried I was gonna have to smack a bitch."

Her voice came out incredibly flat and bored sounding, which considering how animated she is normally, mornings included, comes as quite a shock to my senses.

"What's your problem?"

"I don't have a problem."

Again. She sounds so, vacant. Yeah, that's the word for it. At the very least it's the word that first comes to mind when I try to describe it. She's here. That much is obvious by her presence but behind her eyes I can see it. Detachment. An ever so slight hatred for the world around her.

I know these symptoms well because I suffer from them too.

"Yeah, you do."

I can't believe I'm the one who has to play psychiatrist. It's kind of hilarious, really. In the darkest of ways; the mentally ill analyzing the shrinks. A parallel universe if I ever saw one. Walking over to the couch in the center of the main room, I motion for her to follow, which surprisingly she does and as I take a seat, she takes the one adjacent and slings her arm around me.

Tensing up, I grab her by the wrist and raise her arm above my head before letting it drop down onto her lap. As she looks from her arm to me with an almost crushed expression, I try to form the right words in my head.

"What's wrong?"

Yeah, that's a thing.

Her eyes light up momentarily with the fire I've come to expect and started to hope for.

"Nothing. Not a fucking thing."

But just as quickly as it appeared, it makes its exit. In its place I get her cold, dead voice mumbling through what would normally be screamed and accompanied with some over the top, flailing arm gesture to emphasize the point.

"Kara, I know there's something wrong."

She cocks an eyebrow and looks me over. A smile comes over her face, which puts me at ease for a moment a anything is better to look at than her thousand yard stare.

"You don't even know yourself," she says, her voice maintaining its flatness despite the expression on her face. Every bit of semi interested, fully apathetic dialogue was now coming out with a smile. I think I preferred her when it matched.

"Yeah... so?"

Oh man, I was really making a compelling case for myself.

"Yeah, so. So, you're taking out your own failures at detecting your triggers out on me. You're making your problems into my problems just so you can act like the hero because you need to feel important. And you're stubborn about it too. Just not taking no for an answer, huh?"

This isn't right. This isn't how she talks, dammit.

"But, but... but--"

"But nothing."

I groan in frustration, pushing myself off the couch and walking through the first floor bedroom on my way to the bathroom contained within it.

"Oh yeah, run away from this problem too. That's what you do, Kendall. You run! You run from everything because you can't face shit head on!"

Her voice sounds so close to me, like I was still sitting next to her, though I know she isn't following me. I'd be able to hear her footsteps otherwise.

As I walk into the bathroom, I immediately plug the drain the turn the cold water up as far as I can. Within the matter of a few seconds, the bowl is filled almost three quarters of the way. Pushing all my hair to the back of my head, and holding it in place with one hand, I dunk my head into the cold pool but before my face first touches the water, I see Kara standing in the doorway, glaring back at me.

With eyes closed and head submerged, I take a few seconds to clear my mind.

Pulling my face out of the water, I look back and see her standing even closer to me, but still a bit away. However as I stand up straight and look my dripping self in the mirror, I notice something.

Kara isn't in the reflection.

"Kara!" I cry out in desperation, though for what reason I have no idea. It's clear to me now that she isn't going to say anything back and that's probably for the better.

Releasing the drain block, I watch as the water rushes down into the pipes before making my way back out into the main room of my big, empty hotel room.

Right on over to the bottle of Stolichnaya.

Maybe I'm right.

Maybe I do need Kara to chaperon me.

And maybe I should make sure I forget that thought before anything actually comes of it.