The Weight of Unspoken Words

The motel room smelled like desperation and cheap disinfectant. Frank sat hunched at the wobbly Formica table, the kind that always had a sticky residue no matter how much you wiped it. A single, bare bulb hung from the ceiling, throwing harsh shadows that made his reflection in the smudged window look like a stranger. He picked at a loose thread on the sleeve of his ripped jacket. His knuckles ached, bruised purple from the scramble, the escape. Or maybe from slamming them into something, or someone, he couldn’t quite recall.

He had a pen in his hand. A bic, chewed on the end, like some school kid's. And a piece of paper, a torn-out page from the Gideon Bible that sat on the nightstand. His breath hitched, a dry, rasping sound. His throat felt thick, like he’d swallowed sand. He hadn't written anything in years. Not since school, probably, and even then, it was mostly threats scrawled on bathroom stalls or notes passed in class, promises of payback.

But this. This was different. He pressed the pen to the paper, the cheap ink bleeding a little into the thin page. *To Lily.* The words felt foreign, clunky. He stared at them. A lifetime of wrong turns, bad choices, all condensed into that simple salutation. She was six. Her hair, the color of corn silk, always smelled like bubblegum when he lifted her up. Her laugh, like wind chimes after a storm, a sound he rarely heard anymore, not since… not since he really started down this road, the one with no off-ramps.

He wanted to tell her everything. Or nothing. Just that he loved her. But how do you write that down when you’ve been a ghost, a shadow flitting in and out of her life, leaving behind only the wreckage of broken promises? The last time he’d seen her, he’d promised a trip to the zoo. He’d even had the money, clean money, for once. Then Mikey called, talking about a 'sure thing,' a 'last big one.' He’d ignored his gut, same as always. And now here he was, bleeding slow, probably, from somewhere he hadn't fully checked, staring at a blank page and a name he didn't deserve to utter.

The image of the bank lobby, the sudden scream, the glint of metal, it all flashed behind his eyes. Not his metal, not this time. He was just the wheelman. Supposed to be. But when Jimmy got hit, went down like a sack of bricks, and the other guy, the new kid with the shaky hands, he just froze, Frank had to move. Had to grab the bag, had to run, leave them both. He’d hated himself for it the moment his foot hit the gas, but the instinct, the pure, animal urge to survive, had taken over. Now, a million miles away, the weight of it pressed down, heavier than any cash bag.

He wrote: *I’m sorry, Lily.* That felt inadequate. Like trying to patch a bullet hole with a band-aid. He crumpled the page, started again on another. *My sweet girl.* Better. Softer. He could almost hear her little voice, asking him to read her a story. He remembered her small hand in his, surprisingly strong for such a tiny thing. He remembered promising her a life better than his, a life without these endless shadows, without the constant looking over your shoulder. A life that, despite all his efforts, he’d only ever managed to drag her closer to.

The pen moved, slow, deliberate. He described the zoo, the one they never went to. The lions, the monkeys. He spun a tale of what they *would* have done, what he *would* have shown her. It was a lie, a fantasy, a desperate, final gift. He wrote about the colors of the sunset from their old fire escape, the way her tiny drawings always had a sun in the corner, bright yellow. Anything to fill the silence, to drown out the thumping in his chest that felt like a trapped bird.

A car pulled up outside. Frank froze, pen suspended mid-air. Tires crunched on the gravel. A door slammed. Not a police siren, no, but the kind of heavy, deliberate sound that meant business. This wasn't the law. This was worse. This was Mikey, or what was left of Mikey's crew, coming to ask some hard questions about Jimmy, about the bag, about why he was the only one who made it out. His breath caught, a cold knot forming in his stomach. He didn't finish the letter. He didn't even sign it. He just folded it, once, twice, his hands shaking, and tucked it deep inside the lining of his jacket, under the torn fabric. Then he stood up, the chair scraping loudly across the linoleum, and walked to the door, bracing himself for whatever was waiting on the other side. The words, still unread, still unspoken, burned a hole right through his chest.