Heather went with that. She gave the number on the door a second look and cried out, “Oh! Oops! Wrong floor! Sorry!”
He slammed the door shut. Christy put an arm around Heather’s drooping shoulders. “That is one question answered anyway. Come on; maybe we can find out what happened to your stuff anyway.”
It didn’t really matter. She had not had much, just clothes and few knick-knacks and mementos. Still, Christy seemed determined, and Heather knew that part of that was due to Christy’s needing to do something to make the re-entry into this world less heinous.
They went back down the stairs and then made their way to the desk. The man behind it was new, and she tried for a smile, but it didn’t really meet her eyes. “Hi. I’m…I lived in 3-B. There seems to be a mistake. I was supposed to have my things shipped to me and…”
“Oh. That’s you? Yeah they put your stuff in the downstairs lockers.” He fumbled out a key. “You have a bill here for storage and I’ll have to have payment in full before I can let you get the things.”
Christy snapped, “That is ridiculous! No way is she paying for storage! This was management’s mistake! She arranged to have her things shipped to LA, and to have it done on time. Whoever the manager is here, well, they dropped the ball. We were overseas and not available to know that there was a mistake and that that mistake meant that her things were here! In fact, we should be billing this building for the inconvenience and the hassle and the…give us the keys!”
The guy behind the desk stuttered, “Well, um, see…the old manager left. He went to Florida or something. Like…I don’t know…I mean, this is not my job. I was just told you had to pay.”
Heather rolled with Christy’s lie. She kind of had to. She had no idea if she had any money in the bank or if the credit and debit cards in her wallet even worked anymore. “I am not about to pay for your mistake! In fact, I will sue you before I do that!”
His eyes rolled. He shuffled and danced for a moment and then he gulped out, “Okay, look. I don’t know if anyone ever expected you to come and get it anyway and the guy in your old place has been bitching like crazy about wanting the storage space, and since he also wants to pay for the storage space because they don’t come free anymore, I guess we could always just say we threw your stuff out to make room?”
Christy said, “You’d be in the right, legally speaking, to get rid of it all given how much time has passed. So, we’re just going to get it, and say nothing. Okay?”
He handed over the key. “Yeah, but listen, let’s keep this between us, okay?”
Christy fumbled around in her pockets and came up with a few bills. He made them vanish. Heather and Christy went down to the basement and to the locker and then they began the task of gathering up the plastic trash bags that held her stuff. Tears started and dripped off Heather’s nose as she grabbed yet another of the cheap plastic bags. “My whole life is in trash bags. I don’t even know what that says about me or my life, but somehow it seems fitting.”
The sobs started and she could not stop them. She dropped the bags and crumpled onto the floor. Christy hugged her, hard. “Girl, it’s okay. It is. I know it hurts and you are hurting bad. I could kick Max in his balls for what he did to you! The least he could have done was say goodbye!”
Heather let a last harsh sob rip up from her throat. “I don’t think he cares that I left. In fact, I know he doesn’t. If he did, he would have stopped me, or at least tried to stop me. Wouldn’t he?”
Christy turned away and began gathering bags. “I don’t know, Heather. I just know I got us both into a really shitty situation and it’s all my fault that you’re heartbroken and…and I don’t even know if you still want to be my friend after all that I did to you!”
A little laugh broke from her lips. “You’re crazy. It was awesome. I mean, come on, who can say they saw dragons, and rode on them too? And got to dance on mountaintops and eat under the stars? I can, and so can you. So yeah, it sucks that it didn’t work out for me and Max but…but that was the biggest adventure I ever had and am likely to ever have.”
She got up off the floor, and they hugged again. Christy sighed. “I won’t miss the lack of running water.”
Heather found herself smiling again. “I know, right? But if we could have just convinced them to put in plumbing, it would have been a five-star resort experience! I mean, come on, it’s a castle.”
It was a castle, and castles belonged in fairy tales. Fairy tales were supposed to have happily ever after endings, but that fairy tale—hers and Max’s—had not had that ending. Instead, it had just ended.
She was goingto have to live with that fact and make the best of what had happened to her. She was going to have to learn to put that behind her and maybe, one day, when she was a lot older, she would be able to look back on it all and find herself swept away at the good memories and the sheer romance of it all.
Todd had left her with no good memories because she had never really loved him. She had loved that her family loved him and that he wanted the same dream her parents wanted for her, and that he made her feel like it was okay to settle.
Max? She had not settled. He was everything she had ever wanted, and he had not wanted her in the same way. That was okay; she could, eventually, learn to accept that. She had no choice in the matter. She was in her world, and he was in his, and that portal was closed and would not open again except from his side—and it was clear he had no intention of opening it.
She blew out a long breath. “I guess it is a good thing we are still friends since it also looks like we are about to be roommates.”
Their laughter was short but real. They took the bags and trudged up the stairs and back out onto the street where they hailed a cab. The driver didn’t bat an eye when he saw what they were carrying. Of course not. There were millions of people in the city, and nobody gave a damn about anyone else or cared what they might be doing. She could have a body in those bags and he would not care.
That thought just made her miss Dragon World all the more.
