The faint whir of a motor could be heard from the little black filter of Brent’s fish tank. The glass had been meticulously cleaned and the water was crystal clear around various ornaments and decorations. All in all, the display was quite lovely… if you could ignore the fact that the only four fishy inhabitants were still idly floating at the top of the water, lifeless. Honestly, what was the point of the sustained upkeep? It wasn’t as if a clean home would miraculously bring his fish back to life… and seriously, this was his office! Either replace the fish or chuck the whole thing, man. People who made the decision to see a therapist didn’t need any more macabre negativity in their lives.

 

The door leading to Brent’s office lazily swung open as the man himself stepped out. He had a toothbrush dangling from his mouth and still wore the same robe he had been in two days ago. His trimmed stubble had evolved into an untamed beard and there was… a smell. When I had woken up and made the final decision to come back here, I honestly thought I was finally making some kind of step in the right direction. Leave it to life to prove me wrong at every turn.

 

When the half-sleeping man finally turned to face me he recoiled in fear and let the small pink toothbrush fall to the floor. “How the fuck did you get in here!?” He nearly shrieked as foamy spittle dripped down his chin.

 

“The door?” I honestly didn’t know how to respond to that without sounding like a smart ass. “It wasn’t locked or anything… I can come back later.” Or never, I could always leave, bleach my brain of this entire experience and never return.

 

With a groan gravely enough that I thought he may be gargling, Brent wiped his eyes. “Right, the lock isn’t-- I’ve been meaning to call someone about that. Shit. Well, welcome. Make yourself at home. Give me like… ten minutes to get settled.” Ignoring the voice of reason in my head that was screaming for me to leave as quickly as possible, I sat on one of the stiff plastic chairs of the reception area as I heard faucets turn off and on, multiple toilet flushes, and more cursing than a rerun of South Park. Fifteen minutes after he’d left, Brent reemerged in a slightly stained collared shirt and khaki pants, smelling like an entire can of Axe body spray. “Yeah, the office is a bit of a… how about we just stay out here?” Not wanting to know what this pristine example of professionalism considered unacceptable, I nodded vigorously. “Awesome, so, I assume you’re here for a session. What’s up?”

 

It spoke volumes of both my desperation and poverty that I was still totally willing to go through with this. “You said something last time, you told me that maybe Leona was real… but when I first said a couple of my characters were alive you didn’t believe me at all. What changed?”

 

Brent visibly deflated, as if all of his hopes and expectations about today had been snuffed out in an instant. “Really? That’s why you’re back? Have you been obsessing about that this whole time? If you can’t let that go, then doesn’t that answer your own damn question?”

 

“How does that answer anything!?” I couldn’t help but raise my voice amidst my mounting frustration. “You keep dancing around something, just fucking say what you mean!”

 

My therapist rolled his eyes at me and leaned back into his chair. “If I hand you this answer, it won’t mean anything. Hell, it’ll probably push you further away.”

 

“Enough with the riddles!”

 

Running a hand through his greying hair, Brent crossed one leg over the other. “It’s not supposed to be a riddle, I’m just trying to get you to figure yourself out. Guess what? That’s what therapy is; just one blind dumbass guiding another. Just because we went to a fancy school and got a fancy degree and fancy licensing doesn’t mean we actually know shit. My job is to give you the tools to know yourself better and to help you deal with what you find. Even if I were a telepath who could glean all the answers right away, would you actually listen to me if I just told you what was bothering you? No! You’d argue that you didn’t feel that way until you came to the same conclusion yourself. So please, for me and for you, just follow me on this one more time… and be as honest as you can.” 

 

I took a deep breath and calmed myself down, I hadn’t been angry at Brent. Frustrated? Yes, but my hurt and anger came from elsewhere. “Alright,” he continued, “your character, Leona: Is it fair to say that you envy her?”

 

“Yes,” I replied without hesitation.

 

“Why?”

 

Easy. “She lives in a much more interesting world than ours. There are mysteries and adventures… there’s always something exciting going on. She has an amazing partner that she loves dearly, one who is crass yet charming and kind as she is beautiful. She doesn’t have to suffer through a trite and mundane existence working in customer service to barely scrape by on bills. Her life is fucking charmed!” Not realizing how bitter I’d grown over the years of imagining Leona and Ralee, I dropped my tense shoulders and looked past Brent towards the cemetery tank.

 

Leaning forward and back into my line of sight, Brent forced me into begrudging eye contact once more. “All right, let's say that the universe heard what you just told me and decided to throw you a bone. Tomorrow, Leon woke up in Leona’s place. No more customer service, no more boring world, life became a dream and an adventure. Hell, let’s even throw in the loving partner while we’re at it… would you be happy?”

 

“...Yes.”

 

“Why the hesitation.” I was really hoping he wouldn’t pick up on that. “Come on, didn’t I just list your dream life verbatim? If you, Leon, got to live that life... you should be ecstatic, right?” My eyes stung as my throat clenched shut. Why did the same damn thoughts keep coming back? “Unless there’d still be something missing.”

 

It wasn’t that. It couldn’t be that. I wasn’t-- My arms started shaking as my hands strained to clamp onto the armrests harder and harder. “I would be happier with just that.”

 

“Happier?” Brent repeated. “That doesn’t mean you’d be happy. Tell me, when you described your ideal self the other day you left out a few details: What would your name be?” For the second time today, I felt tears pour down my face in droves. I couldn’t tell if I was trying to answer the deceptively simple question or if the noises coming from my throat were just me trying to catch my breath amidst the ceaseless sobs. A tissue box was held out in front of me by Brent as I proceeded to ruin more sheets than was probably necessary quelling the unexpected rivers that had raged across my cheeks. Sorry, trees, I’d plant another one of you sometime soon to make up for it.

 

***

 

From the dining room, I could hear the sound of an entire tray of dishes smash to smithereens on the kitchen floor. “Mother Fucker!” My coworker's voice managed to travel across the entire restaurant as the mother at my table covered her child’s ears and shot me a dirty look. Hey, it wasn’t my fault everyone who worked here swore like fucking sailors, not all of them could be dignified shitheads like me. Feigning an apologetic grin, I slipped back into the kitchen and found Cathy kneeled on the floor amidst the widespread wreckage of ceramics looking like the movie poster for Platoon. “Son of a bitch!” She cried, punctuating her profanity with more family-friendly language. Following my lead, Alan wheeled around the corner and opened his mouth. “Say anything and I’ll make you eat your own microdick, Al.” With no words of protest, the manager exited stage right and left me alone with my uncharacteristically enraged friend.

 

Knowing that I’d royally screw up any consoling words, I elected to act instead. I rushed over to the nearest broom and dustpan and began cleaning up the sharp jagged chunks all around Cathy. “Lee, you don’t have to do that. I’ll take care of it in a minute. I just need to sit here for a sec.”

 

After brushing away the last large piece, I took a knee next to Cathy. “It’s no big deal, I’m happy to help. Everything okay with you?”

 

The veteran server sighed. “I just had a really bad night is all.”

 

“Wanna talk about it?”

 

Dropping all pretense of getting up, Cathy took a seat on the questionably clean floors. In the interest of solidarity and giving myself a bit of downtime I did the same. “It was the damndest thing. My entire apartment building had a huge power surge. I mean, it wasn’t even like a blackout. All of my electronics were fried, a bunch of my light bulbs popped like balloons, and the weirdest thing was that no other building went dark. Just mine. It was like the almighty himself was tellin’ me where I could stuff it.”

 

“Damn, that is rough,” I pointed out obviously, providing no actual help whatsoever. “Think your insurance will cover the damages?” Cathy flashed me a look that made me feel dumb for even asking. “Fair enough. Is there anything I can do? I don’t have much, but I could come over and help clean up at least.”

 

With a weak smile, Cathy patted my shoulder. “That’s a sweet offer, Lee, but the glass is already taken care of. All I need now is a big bag of money to fall from the sky.”

I shrugged with a dry chuckle. “Fresh out of those, I’m afraid.”

 

Both of us stayed on the floor for a few minutes in silence, paying no mind to the fact that we had basically ditched our tables mid-meal. Finally breaking the silence, Cathy looked at me with the doe eyes she had perfected over decades of working with people. “Well, and I’d hate to impose, but there’s one thing you could do for me.” Shit, she had reeled me in using my own empathy as bait! Resistance was futile. “Could I take your night shift tonight? It’d give me a leg up on scrounging up the extra cash.”

 

Let’s review for a moment. I’d get to help a friend while also doing less work than I otherwise would have? “Absolutely!” Taking all of a fraction of a second to consider Cathy’s request, I gleefully agreed. 

 

She shot me a beaming smile and bounced back to her feet. “Fantastic, I’ll go tell Alan he’s stuck with me for the night… and apologize for calling out his manhood.” With a skip in her step that had me questioning how distraught she’d ever actually been, Cathy went off to find our manager.

 

For the first time in months, I had a Saturday night off. The possibilities were endless. Would I go clubbing? Out to a nice restaurant? Maybe I’d catch a show at one of the community theaters in town or just take a leisurely stroll through the park. The world was my oyster and I’d been given a golden ticket I absolutely couldn’t squander!

 

***

 

Two hours later I was home alone, drinking my fourth glass of box wine and scrolling through the infinite posts of some meme site. When did I become so boring? Was it the day I needed a Tylenol because the music at the club was too loud? Was that when my youth faded and died? The only thing I was excited about right now was the weekend special I’d ordered from the pizza place down the road. It was an incredible deal where I paid full price for my pizza but only felt half as shitty for eating it all by myself in one sitting since this was supposed to be a fun and irresponsible night. What a bargain!

 

Idly clicking through my regular haunts, I found myself back on Scrawlcenter. I hadn’t meant to come back here, there wasn’t anything for me anymore. Ralee had made it very clear that she wanted nothing to do with me. Before I could leave the site once again, something caught my eye. I had fifty-seven notifications? That couldn’t be right. I clicked into it and found that they were all comments on a new chapter of Leona's Odyssey that had been posted an hour ago. Curious about the progress of the story I started, I checked it out and quickly realized why it had garnered such a strong and vocal reaction. Rather than a wall of text, only three lines loaded in.

 

1535 St Cecilia Blvd

Leona will be there

Time for the climax

 

As one might imagine, most of the comments were people who were extremely confused by the post. I couldn’t blame them. This wasn’t meant for the readers, after all. It was a message for Ralee and myself. If I went down there, I’d no doubt get an earful from her… but how could I not? She had told me to get my own life and to stay out of hers, and that was fair. For years I’d leaned a bit too heavily on my characters as an escape from my own life. I used them to run away from my boredom, my apathy, my true self…

 

and the window…

 

Now, I was done running. Whether I liked it or not, I’d given myself a high bar to live up to with my name. Whoever had sent this message had proclaimed that Leona would show up… and I wasn’t about to disappoint.