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This was supposed to signify my independence, that I had returned to triumph over my bills and my career. Instead, it just felt like I was backsliding to my old life, not going forward.
The new tenant hadn’t worked out, according to my landlord when I had called him halfway through the tour with Sneak, begging to know if he had any available units in any of his managed properties. The tenant hadn’t paid rent after the first month, but there had also been multiple raids of the apartment by police for something they were not at liberty to discuss. It sounded like for three months my apartment had been living a colorful life.
Yet they’d left the dream catcher, which was interesting. With my partially empty bottle of champagne beneath it on the window sill. Then I suddenly realized it wasn’t the same bottle. This one was full. Unopened. A more expensive brand than the one I had left behind. That was just crazy.
There was a new piece of paper added below mine.
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable. ~ Helen Keller
That was a better note than the one I’d left. I could admit it. The freeloading tenant under investigation by the police was more cerebral than me. That was just fabulous.
My life had been a daring adventure. I wasn’t sure what it was anymore, nor did I understand that quote exactly.
After I had texted the girls, I had texted Brandon asking to have my stuff sent over. It was stupid of me. I should have actually called him, but I had chickened out at the last minute. Now I was staring at my paltry belongings in three stacks around me. I had to have more than six boxes of possessions, but apparently not.
Poppy texted me in a group text with Willow.
Can you video chat later? Are you going to be home all night?
I was going exactly nowhere.
Yes. Any time is good.
Still freezing, I viciously ripped open the nearest box, feeling mocked by the universe, the previous tenant, and even Helen Keller, which was just wrong of me. But weren’t we supposed to embrace fate?
I needed a freaking sweater. There had to be a sweater in one of these boxes.
No sweater, but there was a cheap winter coat on top. I realized immediately that it was the coat I’d bought on the fly the night I had met Brandon. I’d grabbed it off the rack for like twenty bucks to go ice-skating. It wasn’t a cute coat. Wh
y had I kept this and yet jettisoned half of my stuff?
Because I’m stupidly sentimental and don’t want to admit it.
Brandon’s text back to me when I’d requested my stuff the night before had been pleasant and polite. Helpful, accommodating. Nothing more. I had wanted more. But what the hell was the man supposed to say in a text when I’d just up and left his life seven weeks earlier?
He was an adult, so he’d been polite and very efficient. My boxes had arrived twelve hours later.
I pulled the coat out of the box and put it on over my leggings and sweatshirt, hoping it would warm me up. Then I went for the champagne from the last dude to live in apartment 311 and twisted the wire off the top. I popped the cork and drank straight from the bottle. I saluted the dream catcher. “Fate is a tricky bitch, isn’t she?”
I had been so convinced that fate had brought me and Brandon together.
Look how that had turned out.
Fate had handed it to us and we had both essentially turned it down.
Thanks, can’t, too scary, bye.
I took another sip of the champagne. The apartment was so cold the bubbly was actually chilled to perfection. Setting the bottle back down on the windowsill, I started pulling stuff out of the open box on the floor. Mostly clothes.
I threw down the pair of shorts I was holding. I sat back on my ass, legs crossed. This was bullshit. I wasn’t happy. I had played it safe instead of being a free spirit and now I was just miserable. I loved Brandon.
“Dakota, you’re a mess. Even more than you were a year ago,” I said out loud in my empty apartment. “Because then you were just having fun, now you’re in love with a man who has no idea how you feel.”
Just hearing my words echo in the mostly dark room, lit only by the feeble undermount light of the kitchen cabinets, I crawled across the floor on my knees to reach the champagne bottle. After sipping it again, my hand was cold from holding it, so I tucked it into my coat pocket.
Immediately, I jerked it back. There was something in the pocket. Something crunchy. After realizing it wasn’t anything disgusting, just unexpected, I reached into the pocket again and pulled the item out.
I burst into tears.
