film lightly, peeking every few seconds to see if it had finished. By the time he found her again and she pressed another flute of Dom Pérignon into his hands and whispered in his ear, breath hot, her voice light with a hint of buzz, âYou are not going to believe what Imanuel just told me about the second groomsman,â sheâd forgotten heâd taken a picture of her at all.
Ory slid the photo back in and put his driverâs license securely on top of it. Even though she was all done up, hair pulled into a messy bun and makeup on, Max still looked almost the same, and it would do for showing people he passed, if he ever passed anyone, to ask if theyâd seen a woman who looked like this. Assuming they could remember how to speak, or anything theyâd seen at all.
Back in the main room, the paper that had been taped to the inside of their door since the beginning caught his eye again. There was one rule he and Max had made, long before sheâd lost her shadow and they had made the rest of them. Rule Zero, they had started calling it after theyâd written the list. He pulled it down and crumpled it into a withered ball. There was no way Max could not have seen it when she left. What did that mean? How much had she forgotten?
Theyâd made Rule Zero when they became the only ones left at the hotel. For months there had been no electricity, no running water, then no radio. Then finally there were no other guests. They couldnât avoid the conversation about it any longer.
âItâs not fair,â Max had said. âIf it was me that went missing, youâd come after me.â
âNo, I wouldnât,â Ory replied. It didnât even sound believable to him.
âYes, you would,â Max argued. âBesides, itâs different. You go out all day, and I stay here most of the time. If I disappeared, it would be because I lost my shadow and forgot to stay, so of course you shouldnât follow then!â
âDonâtââ He grimaced. It felt like tempting fate to ever mention the possibility it could happen to either of them.
âI only meant, if you were the one who didnât come home, it would probably be because you were injured somewhere and needed my help.â
âIâll make sure to get killed, then, so thereâs nothing to come help.â
âOry,â Max said, her voice horribly small.
The silence settled between them, heavy. âSorry,â he finally murmured.
They looked down at dinnerâone plastic bag of potato chips. What heâd found the last time heâd gone out.
âI just canât,â Max said. âIt would be one thing if one of us forgot. But if you go missing while youâre out looking for food, Iâm going to go to where you said you went and try to find you.â
âThatâs not the deal,â Ory said.
âThatâs as good as youâre going to get,â she shot back. âIâll give you that if one of us forgets, the other doesnât go after. I canât do any more than that. Okay?â
âOkay,â Ory finally said. He used paper from the abandoned guest bookâwrote the rule in silence and hung it up. You never go after the other person if they forget . They didnât speak for the rest of the evening.
It was the best they could do, but it wasnât enough. Over the next few weeks, Ory stopped telling Max where he went to scavenge for scraps each day, or if she refused to let him out the door without an answer, lied so blatantly she knew it was so. Eventually she stopped asking, because she knew what he was doing.
Later that night, after theyâd made Rule Zero, Ory used a tiny bit of the precious soap they had left. The shelter had contained boxes and boxes of surplus inventory, back when it was Elk Cliffs Resort, and in the early days theyâd squandered it. Bathing whenever they liked, washing their hair at least once a
Bret Witter, Luis Carlos Montalván