I sink deeper into the blessed warmth.
God, when did I last have a proper soak like this? Before this morning, obviously. I’m talking about thebefore times—before my life took this impossible turn into... whatever this is.
Life certainly wasn’t all mind-blowing intimacy and luxurious bath times.
Ha. Not even close.
I had a job, like everyone else. Sure, I painted whenever I could manage it on weekends, but weekdays meant the nine-to-five grind in a cubicle. Customer service for a paper goods company—solving everyone’s Post-it emergencies and shipping disasters.
And there I was, stuck in St. Paul before Drew entered the picture. Trapped in that tiny house with my mother, who refused to let me move out, and fixing everyone else’s problems while ignoring the mounting ones in my own life.
Oh, your shipment arrived damaged? I’m absolutely the cheerful customer service rep to solve that for you!
I’ve always been relentlessly optimistic, even when being cursed out for hours straight. Nothing could dim my determined brightness.
Then I’d come home to find Mom in a state about the messy house, and I’d just keep that practiced smile plastered on. After all, she’s sacrificed so much for me. Something she’d remind me about whenever she was tired.
“You know, I’m on my feet all day,” she’d complain, shooting that familiar dismissive glance my way. “Not that you’d understand. So, can you please just handle the dishes? For once?” Then came the dramatic sigh and ceiling-ward gaze. “I always thought I’d be able to retire by now. But I guess we don’t always get what we want.”
I was never sure how to respond to that thinly veiled accusation. Obviously, I wasn’t what she’d wanted; I was the reason she couldn’t live out her dreams of leisurely retirement. All those surgeries and medical bills had added up, even with insurance.
Nearly every paycheck went straight to her for rent, groceries, and everything else. I kept maybe two hundred for myself, trying to build some pathetic little savings.
It always felt like walking on eggshells around her. So I thought she’d be thrilled when I came home and announced that I’d met someone at work and we were dating.
Boy, was I wrong.
She completely lost it.
She was convinced Drew was just using me.
“For what?” I’d asked, genuinely bewildered.
Her face had scrunched up while she rolled her eyes. “What do you think? S-e-x.”
I’d laughed in her face. We weren’t even close to that yet—just a few innocent kisses. He’d been nothing but gentlemanly. Honestly, I’d started thinking of him as my knight in shining armor, imagining him rescuing me from that suffocating house where I felt increasingly like an old maid surrounded by Mom’s multiplying cats. Five now, plus Mittens, who was pregnant when I left.
Looking up at the cold stone ceiling, I wonder about them now. Mittens probably had her kittens by now.
Mittens and her kittens.I laugh, slightly hysterical.
That world feels impossibly distant, like it exists in another dimension entirely.
But I suppose I’m the one who got whisked away through some kind of fairy gate. Except that unlike children’s stories, there are no fey princes here.
Just monsters with even more impressive...anatomy?—
I reach for the soap, trying to redirect my thoughts.
This line of thinking feels disloyal to Drew somehow. I’ve had fleeting moments of guilt since arriving here, but I haven’t been alone long enough to really process it all. There’s definitely no going back now, and I’m finally feeling the weight of that reality.
He was supposed to be my knight in shining armor...right?
So why don’t I miss him more?
Okay, he wasn’t perfect. Initially, moving into his place instead of staying with Mom felt amazing. He represented newness in a life of crushing sameness.
And he didn’t seem bothered by my condition like others in my limited dating history had been.
