Blue Steel pulled out of the mini-mall parking lot screeching like a banshee… as per usual. God, I missed driving that abomination. Somehow the sensible seats and working air-conditioning of the SUV I had rented just didn’t feel right anymore. Was there an automobile equivalent to Stockholm syndrome? Guess it wasn’t important anymore.

 

So far, things had been going surprisingly to plan. Thanks to Ralee’s relentless drive to search for Leona, I was able to confirm some theories of mine. If these two just kept following along, I was sure they’d figure it out eventually… unless they gave up on the story before then. Fuck, things would get way too complicated if I had to step in personally. This whole situation was already giving me a major league migraine without the added stress of a face-to-face confrontation.

 

Looking at the time, I noticed that my own appointment was only an hour away. I needed to hightail it downtown to make sure I didn’t miss my own chance. Come on, man, you gotta stop worrying about them and focus on yourself too, it’s only fair.

 

Alright, I would just leave it be for a couple of days before chapter ten went live. If they still hadn’t gotten it by then… on to plan B, I suppose.

 

***

 

It had been sixteen hours since we left Brent’s office and neither Ralee nor myself had fully recovered from the experience. It wasn’t hard to guess what was eating Ralee… the story had been wrong. Her one absolute connection to her life with Leona fed her a false promise of reunion that she poured all of her hope into. Ever since we got back to my apartment, she’s posted up on my couch, wrapped in a blanket cocoon, holding my phone hostage on the story site and refreshing the page every thirty seconds. My monthly data bill was going to be an unholy nightmare that would prove once and for all that I should have sprung for unlimited… but I didn’t have the heart to stop her. At this point, I didn’t know how she would react to the next chapter, if it ever updated again. Would she scoff? Scream? Praise it as the second coming of hope? It was hard to tell.

 

Meanwhile, I wasn’t doing much better in the area of emotional stability. “Just think about it for me, why did you make your character Leona? Maybe you’re not too far off, after all, thinking she’s real.” What the fuck kind of demented psychobabble was that anyway? And why the hell couldn’t I just drop it!?

 

As a new day dawned, I either had to get ready for work or beg and plead with a coworker to take my shift. Initially, I had been leaning towards calling in a favor… but then I remembered how abysmal my financial situation was and decided to serve my time and hope for early parole.

 

I collected my keys and looked back at the half-comforter, half-human mass that Ralee had become. It didn’t feel right leaving her here without at least making sure she was okay. “Ralee, I have to go to work for a bit but I’ll be back before nightfall. Did you want me to bring home anything to eat?” No response. Honestly, I didn’t know what I expected. “Alright, no food in this dojo, understood. Is there anything else that you’d like? Something to make you feel better?” Once again, radio silence on all frequencies. This was equal parts tedious and unnerving. After her breakdown in the car, she had completely shut down and I hadn’t heard a peep from her since. Having written her character, I didn’t think she’d do something extreme, but I just needed to at least have her acknowledge the world somehow, if only for a second. “Ralee, please just say something… anything. I don’t want to leave you here if you’re spiraling and--”

 

“Fuck off.” Damn, I would have settled for one word and I got two instead, what an abundance of riches!

 

With an exaggerated bow and a faux British accent that would have Cary Elwes shaking his magnificently maned head, I declared “As you wish!” before traipsing off to sell my dignity for cash.

 

Most people would probably have some reservations about leaving someone who was basically a stranger in their home for hours. However, unless Ralee collected used pizza boxes, cockroaches, or computers so old and worn down they may as well be typewriters, I didn’t really have much to worry about. There really were perks to being dirt poor… yeah, I didn’t believe that either. I’d have sold a kidney, an eye, and my whole damn liver for a million bucks.

 

***

 

It was eleven at night before I found myself wearily dragging my feet up the stairs of my walk-up. Leave it to the new girl to skip out on a shift and for Alan to keep me around for yet another double. I swear, the best day of my life would involve walking out on my job… or burning it to the ground, whatever my state of mind allowed at the time. All I wanted to do was flop down on my bed and succumb to the sweet siren song of sleep, but that wasn’t an option while my chrysalis of a flatmate was still borderline catatonic. Luckily for me, I had a foolproof plan for just such an occasion. Rustling around in the plastic bags that limply hung off my wrists, were the ingredients for my secret weapon… a card up my sleeve so powerful it made Exodia look like a bitch.

 

As I entered my apartment, I found all of the lights out. All right, guess a miraculous recovery while I was out may have been too much to ask for. Oh well. I turned on the entryway, kitchen, and living room lights, finding a slumped over and sleeping Ralee still clutching my now dead phone. Good thing I hadn’t shown her where the power cord was, pretty sure she needed the recharge more. Now, cautious of making too much noise and disturbing Sleeping Beauty there, I went about prepping dinner.

 

After setting a small Tupperware bowl on the table next to Ralee, I crouched down next to her. In the softest voice I could muster I called, “Hey, Ralee, food’s ready. It won’t be that good cold.” The clearly exhausted woman stirred but didn’t wake up. I placed my hand on her shoulder gently and softly shook her, raising my volume just a tad. “Ralee, I know you’re tired but you have to eat something. Please get up.”

 

For a split second, Ralee’s eyes cracked open before she slammed them shut again. “What’s for dinner?” she groggily slurred, barely maintaining the loose grip on consciousness she’d gained.

 

“Something really good. Come on, get it while it’s hot.” Ralee’s nose twitched as she finally smelled what The Rock was cooking. She rolled over, away from the bowl, and faced the back of the couch instead.

 

The blankets around her loosened just a bit and I could hear her voice becoming more coherent. “That tells me nothing. I have a very sophisticated palate I’ll have you know.”

 

She was joking around again, words couldn’t express how relieved that simple stupid gesture made me feel. “Well, only the finest for my guests. I’m sure you’ll love it, just take a look.”

 

Finally, after entirely too long roleplaying a burrito wrapped in cotton tortillas, Ralee shimmied out of her cozy prison. With a groan that belonged in the ham actor hall of fame, she sat up and turned back towards her still-steaming meal. On the table was something most people wouldn’t bat an eye at, a simple bowl of packet ramen enhanced by a few extra garnishes. One hard-boiled egg, some green onion, chopped and fried SPAM (don’t knock it til you’ve tried it), and sliced bamboo shoots were all that separated the bowl from your average dorm room poverty grub. It had taken minutes to make and probably cost less than your average fast-food kids meal, but the way Ralee’s eyes shined when she saw it made it worth its weight in gold.

 

“It’s--”

 

“Rad-men, yup, just the way you like it.” Yes, ‘Rad-men’ was the ill-conceived portmanteau of radical and ramen first thought up during the great hangover of ‘13. No good decisions or names are ever made after a bottle of jaeger and five double-shot margaritas… I’m honestly surprised I lived through that night. “Figured you could use a pick me up given how yesterday went.”

 

With a glee I hadn’t seen since I met her, Ralee gratefully grabbed her bowl and fork and started inhaling the soup I had laid out. Literally, in less than a minute she was placing her empty bowl back on the table and leaning back with a contented sigh. No joke, this girl had a promising career as a professional eater if she ever decided to go down that path. “Thank you… for everything.”

 

That moment. That single irreplaceably calm moment with Ralee gently smiling on the sofa while I gratefully witnessed her acting like herself again, was a moment I wished I could remain in forever. The outside world had faded to an ambient hum, the lingering smell of broth was prominent but not overbearing, and everything was just so pleasantly still… “Hold on a second--” and just like that, the dream had ended. “Rad-men… that wasn’t in the story.”

 

“What?” Shit.

 

“The story, I’ve read it backward and forwards, it never mentions Rad-men. Not once.” Shit. Fuck. Damnit.

 

“I mean, come on Ralee… putting extra stuff into ramen isn’t exactly re-inventing the wheel here.” Please, just drop it. Tonight didn’t have to be like this. I was just trying to do something nice.

 

The woman who had been so calm mere seconds ago stood up from the couch, staring at the table with a mix of disgust and confusion. “But the name… that stupid ass name, and you said it was just the way I liked it. What’s going on?”

 

Subconsciously backing away from the confrontation I wasn’t prepared for, I felt my back hit the brick wall behind me. “Come on, who doesn’t like Ramen, plus names are--”

“Cut the shit!” Ralee yelled at me, her eyes burning with fury as she b-lined it for me. My back was flush with the wall but I still tried to retreat further in a foolish and desperate bid to not be here anymore. “You’re driving Leona’s car, you know Drew, you were somehow familiar with an online story with a readership in the hundreds, and now you know about me beyond the scope of what was written in said story; who are you!?”

 

This should have been a nice night. I could have come home and made literally anything else to eat and none of this would have happened. Goddamnit. “I… please don’t be mad. I-- I wrote Leona’s Odyssey. I-- I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

 

“You? You wro-- you wrote the story?” Ralee was at just as much a loss for words as I. “You-- How did-- But then-- If-- Have you been spying on us this whole time? For our whole lives?” The first question she was able to fully form and I already felt like throwing up. Of course that would be the natural assumption. Nobody wanted to believe that they were nothing but fiction… and I sure as hell didn’t want to break that news to her now. My throat strained and the few words I tried to force through couldn’t quite make it to the outside. It was getting harder to breathe so I abandoned speech and simply shook my head. “So what then? You just made all of it up, is that what you’re saying?” I wasn’t saying anything. I didn’t know what to say. My head turned down and my eyes hit the floor. Ralee paused at my reaction, unsure of what my silence meant. Truth be told, I didn’t know much of anything anymore. Characters didn’t just become real because you wanted them to, if that were the case the world would be filled with previously fictional people. Ralee was real, and I knew about as much as she did about the situation.

 

“So--” My gasping attempt at an apology stumbled midway to articulation.

 

Slamming her fist on the wall next to me, Ralee closed in further until she was inches away from me. “Don’t even think we’re done yet. The chapters with Leona in this world, what were those about? Was it all just some game to mess with me?”

 

“No! I didn’t write those!” Finally finding my voice, I try to match my volume with hers to at least get through the one answer I knew I could give. “I’ve been with you every time those were uploaded. I’m not the one who's in control anymore.”

 

“Anymore… yeah…” The woman who had been incandescent during this whole exchange burned out in an instant as she backed off and gave me room to breathe. “You’re not in control anymore, are you? But you were. You were in control for a while. Tell me, Rob, did you write the part where Leona was taken from me?”

 

It’s strange what lessons people hold onto from their childhood. Years ago, my mother had told me that a person could be one of two things: They could be a good person, or they could be good at being a person. The obvious insinuation in this duality being that people, inherently, aren’t good. Now, this had just been a throwaway line she had passed on to me while she tried to explain why we could never tell Dad that she had flipped off her boss and gotten canned, but the words stuck nonetheless. Throughout the years, I had always asked myself which side of the line I fell onto, and the answer always seemed to shift. Standing here, face to face with a distraught woman who rightfully wanted answers… I felt like this single moment would define me forever.

 

“I did.” As the words escaped my mouth, I braced myself for the worst; screaming, yelling, punching, whatever was coming, I wanted to soften the blow. What came next managed to thoroughly shock me. Silence. Ralee stared at me, unblinking. Her face was unreadable and her body did nothing to betray the maelstrom of thoughts that must have been swirling around in her mind.

 

After a pause so rife with tension that I was sure I’d lost a decade off my lifespan, she finally spoke. “Why? We were happy. We loved each other. Life wasn’t perfect, but it was good. Why did you have to take her away?” As the tears began to roll down her cheeks, I felt my heart crumbling to dust. “And if you cared so little about us… if we were so inconsequential that you would ruin our lives… why help me here?”

 

My legs turned to jelly and I slid down the wall behind me until I was sitting down, staring up at the bawling woman whose life I had destroyed. “I didn’t mean to… I-- I didn’t know you were real. I was just trying to tell a good story and add some flair before the happy ending. If I had known-- If I had known I never would have done any of this!” It was my turn to cry. My face must have been a disturbing sight as I felt tears and snot trickle down my skin. “And I wanted to help… because you’re Ralee. You’re Ralee-fucking-Zephyr. You’re funny, and kind, a bit of a smart-mouth but the woman with the biggest heart I’d ever seen. For years, you were front and center in my mind. After every hard day, in every dull moment, when the whole world seemed empty… you were always there. How could I not want to be there for you too? You want to know who I am? I’m L-- I am Le--” Brent had been right, I had known before he pointed me straight at the answer. I was Leona, and had been all along. But knowing and accepting, somehow, weren’t the same thing. “I’m just someone who would have been lost without you.”

 

“I don’t even know you.” The voice that kicked the wind out of me was cold and mirthless. “You spend so much time obsessing over my life… get your own, and stay the fuck away from me!”

 

At some point after that, Ralee had left. Pretty sure I heard the car starting up, so it was probably gone as well. All I could do was sit on the floor where I had been left. For the sake of my dignity, I’m going to lie and say it only took a couple of hours to pick myself off the floor and clean up the mess I’d become. I didn’t know what to do. Guess this is what rock bottom felt like for me… scratch that, I hoped to god this is what rock bottom felt like and there wasn’t some extra bonus-tier of misery that I had yet to attain. All I knew was that I felt like shit, and without my writing, my car, or a shift to work today, I officially had nothing.