Chapter 2 - THE WEIGHT OF GOLD
When the door to room 204 finally swung open,
the sound of the latch clicking felt like a gunshot in the silent hallway.
Graham Weston stood there,
his shirt unbuttoned at the collar,
his face pale and etched with lines of exhaustion that no amount of money could erase.
The note I had slid under the door was clutched in his hand,
crinkled and damp from the moisture on his skin.
His eyes,
which had seemed so empty in the lobby,
were now overflowing with a raw,
unfiltered grief.
I stood frozen,
my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
"Why?"
he asked,
his voice a low,
broken rasp that barely carried through the air.
"Why did you write this?"
I looked at the paper in his hand,
then back at his tear-streaked face.
"Because I watched you in the rain,"
I replied,
my own voice shaking.
"And I realized that if I didn't say something,
you might not be here when the sun came up."
He let out a jagged breath,
a sound that was half-sob and half-laugh.
He stepped back,
silently inviting me into the room.
The space was dimly lit,
the only light coming from a single bedside lamp that cast long,
distorted shadows across the ceiling.
On the mahogany desk sat a leather briefcase and a bottle of expensive scotch,
mostly empty.
He sat on the edge of the bed,
dropping his head into his hands.
"I have spent my entire life building an empire,"
he whispered,
"stacking gold bars until I couldn't see the sky anymore."
"I have everything a man is supposed to want,
yet I have never felt more invisible than I do tonight."
I leaned against the closed door,
the coldness of the hallway still clinging to my back.
"Money is just a shield,"
I said softly,
"but shields get heavy after a while,
don't they?"
He looked up at me,
startled by the simplicity of my words.
The silence stretched between us,
May you like
heavy and thick,
as the rain continued to weep against the window.
