“Le-- Leona?” Ralee stepped closer to our incredibly casual newcomer. For a few painful seconds, nobody responded to her hopeful question. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

 

Leon scratched the back of his head and looked away. “Yeah, I knew this shit was going to get complicated.” The tension grew as he contemplated how to best phrase things. “You’re not wrong, but you’re wrong. I did go by Leona, but now the only one who does is standing right there.” With a blunt gesture, Leon directed Ralee’s attention back to me.

 

Emboldened by finally coming face to face with the person she’d been searching for, Ralee drew closer to Leon. “Alright… I think I get it-- but it’s still you, right?”

 

As Ralee entered Leon’s reach, he grabbed her shoulders and held her at bay. “Yes… and no. I’m afraid there are no easy answers in this convoluted mess we’ve ended up in.” Leon looked back at me, reminding me that I wasn’t just a spectator to this touching reunion but an actual part of the show. “You know this’d be a lot easier if you spoke up and moved things along too.”

 

Me? What the hell was I supposed to say? I already played the “I’m Leona” card. That was all I had coming into this showdown and apparently, my trump had been a dud. “So… you’re Leon, but also the character I wrote?”

 

Letting go of Ralee, Leon pinched the bridge of his nose realizing that I was not the competent partner in deduction he had pegged me for. “Swing and a miss there, lady, is that really what you thought was going on? Alright, guess it’s time to break out the training wheels.” You know, Bizzaro me was kind of a dick. “Tell me, when did you start writing stories about Ralee and me? And I don’t just mean Leona’s Odyssey, I want to know when you first started writing about my life in general.”

 

“ I don’t know, a few years ago?”

 

Clearly exhausted by me, Leon plopped back down onto the filthy suede chair. “Alright, we’re going to need to enact a strict no-bullshit rule if we’re ever going to get anywhere here. Tell me the exact date you started writing our story, I know you remember.”

 

He was right. “December fifth, two thousand fifteen.” As soon as the first syllable left my mouth Leon had joined in so we could say the date in tandem.

 

“Yup, that about cinches things. You saw me in the window just like I saw you.”

 

My blood froze in my veins as the memories I’d tried to drop from that day… those months… returned in an instant. “You… you went through it too?” Leon nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry--”

 

With a shrug, Leon chuckled lightly, trying to break the negative pressure this topic would drape over our meeting. “Wasn’t your fault, sometimes life just sucks. Point is, we both got better after that… and we both started writing too.”

 

Realization dawned on me that I had only been looking at the situation from my side of the glass. I had thought Leon was some strange ephemeral vision created by my imagination in a time of desperation. I clung to that thread for dear life and used it as a way to vent my frustrations and vicariously live the dreams I thought were out of my reach while sick. Leon had done the same on his end. “Wait, if we were both writing… my life, was the story you wrote?”

 

“And vice versa. Funny, huh? We’re both living each other’s dream… and we’re both completely miserable.”

 

This entire situation was beyond surreal, it was downright stranger than fiction. I hadn’t created shit, aside from a series of problems for this person in front of me. Despite the incredible situation and the near impossibility of a meeting like this even taking place, my mind kept circling back to one immature thought. “Hold on a second, are you saying that my life… my life is a dream come true for you!?” There may have been a more than insignificant part of me that was furious. My poverty, my daily grind, all of the shitty customers and managers I’d ever had to deal with… all of it was intended, and even envied, by this batshit crazy person. As I yelled at my near doppelganger and stormed over to his seat, he stood back up to meet me eye to eye.

 

“You’re goddamn right it is. Better than the monster of the week bullshit you put me through. The mid-90’s called, they want their basic episodic plot structure and obsession with the paranormal back. You had me investigating ghosts and monsters and shit… and I don’t even like scary stories! Do you know what it’s like to hate horror movies and somehow have an innate compulsion to turn your own life into one again and again? I seriously thought there was something wrong with me!”

 

“There is something wrong with you! Your dream is to be a restaurant server? Really!? I get that you wanted normal and peaceful, but for fuck’s sake aim higher! And another thing… did you have to make me so damn poor? I mean, I didn’t exactly set you up in the Ritz-Carlton but you always had enough to get by. Were you setting up some dramatic season two arc where I had to tearfully decide which organ to auction off on the black market?”

 

This exchange of harsh yet warranted criticisms could have gone on all night, maybe for the rest of this still-young decade, had it not been for one thing. While Leon and I were busy screaming in one another’s face we both failed to notice Ralee silently walking up to us. She gently placed a hand on Leon’s shoulder and we both went quiet. “Our life… was it really that terrible for you?”

 

The man who had been put on the spot looked between me and Ralee, silently praying for someone else to say something. It was obvious that there was no correct answer to her question. Nobody would walk out of here unscathed. “The time we spent together, at least, the times you remember so fondly… that wasn’t me. I enjoyed being with you but-- but I was never a good match.”

 

Leon had said his peace and Ralee let her hand slip away from him. “I see.” Just two words came from her, barely louder than the deafening silence around us. “You two have a lot to talk about. I-- I should go.” The one person completely not at fault in all of this left Leon and I to stew in our own twisted self-loathing.

 

“Goddamnit…” Leon sighed as he started slowly pacing in a circle. Mere moments ago we’d been ready to beat the living shit out of one another, but regret had a way of drowning anything else so it could hog the spotlight. “You have to go find her.”

 

“Excuse me?” That was it? That was the sagacious wisdom I had waited for? “Umm, yeah, unless you failed to notice our exchange before you made your dramatic entrance… Ralee hates me. She blames me for ruining what you two had and causing all of this shit. If anyone has a chance at talking things over with her, it’s you.”

 

Crossing his arms and staring at the ceiling pensively, Leon considers my words for a moment. “Nope. Not my department.” Before shooting them down. “Quick question, how much of my life are you aware of beyond what you’ve written?”

 

“Jack shit.”

 

“Exactly… you only have what you wrote to go on. What you aren’t getting is that things didn’t always go so smoothly when you weren’t interfering. After I came to this world and read your story, your director’s cut of my life, I realized that it was a snapshot of the whole story told through rose-colored glass. You wrote almost every positive memory I had with Ralee. Your hopelessly romantic ass was the reason it worked between the two of us at all. Ralee and I had fuck all in common until you started meddling with my life. Not to mention the sappy lines you were feeding me and the gestures you had me do… all you. Outside of what you wrote I remember arguments, apathy, talks of ‘taking a break’... it was far from ideal.”

 

That didn’t make sense. Ever since Leona had her run-in with the box and ended up here, Ralee had been on a laser-focused crusade to bring her home. “Why would she go through all the trouble of finding you in an entirely different world if you were both on such thin ice?”

 

“I guess… what she got from you more than made up for what she got from me.” Pulling out a phone of his own, Leon checked the screen. “Alright, we’ve been in this dump for far too long. Hell, the only reason I had you meet me here was to pay you back for the number of times you sent me to tetanus-ridden ramshackle places like this before. I’m headed back to my clean, warm, and habitable hotel room. We’re not done talking yet, not even close, but right now you’ve got bigger fish to fry. So make sure she’s okay and we’ll talk next steps in the morning. I’ll be in touch.”

 

With a definitive final note to our meeting, Leon turned back towards the entrance to leave. “Wait!” Unfortunately for him, I wasn’t one to let someone have their incredibly smooth exit.

 

“Come on, seriously? Just go talk to her and--”

 

“Yeah yeah yeah, I agree with you on all that and the bit about talking more in the morning. That’s all good. But I’m pretty sure Ralee just stole my car… again. Can I get a ride?”

 

***

 

Nothing in this or any other world could prepare me for the tense and uncomfortable ride Leon provided me. Luckily my first guess as to Ralee's destination was right on the money and I was able to keep my time in Leon’s car mercifully short.

 

Jackson’s, a small southern-style diner that served the best damn comfort food a modest paycheck could buy. It had been the inspiration for the joint Ralee and Leona would hit up after every case, successful or not. As I spotted Ralee’s head nearly buried in a plate of chicken-fried steak, I was immeasurably glad that old habits die hard.

 

As I slid into the booth bench opposite Ralee, she barely looked up from her meal before continuing to ravenously devour her prey. “Hey, Ralee, mind if--”

 

“Leave.”

 

That was… curt. Well, I hadn’t expected this would be easy. “Ralee, please, just give me a few minutes of your time. Then you never have to see me again.”

 

Ralee’s fork stopped midway to her mouth, still covered in a mountain of mashed potatoes. “You have 'til I’m done eating. When I leave, you stay… and foot the bill” With that, Ralee continued her culinary onslaught.

 

Alright, perfect, I had a chance. A chance to say… what, exactly? Shit, I didn’t actually think I’d get this far without having a plate of gravy slathered foodstuffs thrown at my face. I was in way over my head here. I was a writer, not a talker, there was usually an abundance of time to consider my words, to edit how I said and did things. Now, I could do nothing but watch my precious, limited opportunity fly off the plate.

 

“I-- I’m not going to apologize again. Not because I don’t regret everything that’s happened to you, but because every time I do it looks like you want to punch me in the throat. Leon and I, we were ignorant as to the influence we had over one another. Hell, it’s still hard for me to believe that this whole situation isn’t some long dream or bad trip. But ignorance is never an excuse. I am the reason you got involved with Leon and I take full responsibili--”

 

A stainless steel fork clattered on the table as it was dropped. “Alright, let's be perfectly clear.” For the first time in this exchange, Ralee had given me her undivided attention. “Whatever weird twin-telepathy bullshit you and Leon have going with each other, it has no power over me. I got involved with-- him, because I wanted to. Falling for your fiction, getting hooked on honeyed words that didn’t belong to him, honestly believing that someone fucking cared about me that deeply, all of it is on me. You can say what you want about your own shit but I own my mistakes.”

 

With that, the still furious woman picked back up where she left off. It took me a few seconds to process what she had said before I was able to continue. By then, she only had half of her meal left. “You’re right, it was wrong of me to undercut your involvement in this. You weren’t a spectator getting thrown around by some current, you were just as involved as we were from the beginning.” Ralee thrashed her head up and down in agreement. “In that case, I’d like you to pay me the same courtesy. You see me as nothing but a meddling force that poked my nose where it didn’t belong… but I was right there with you and Leon. Everything that was said and done in your precious memories had to come from somewhere. I am, and always have been, Leona.”

 

No attempt was made by Ralee to deny my words. She swallowed the food she was chewing and jabbed her empty fork in my direction. “But if you were her the whole time, why mess around and go through the motions of looking for yourself?”

 

Gesturing vaguely to my… everything, I laughed half-heartedly. “I hadn’t exactly figured out who I am until recently. Can you blame me? Looking and sounding like this my whole life, believing I could be who I wanted to was never gonna come easy. Hell, even if I had known since day one, what are the odds you’d have believed me if I said it?”

 

“There were a couple of times before when I saw it… just for a second. Yes, you look different, but the way you acted… how you spoke… there was something familiar from the beginning.” Simply hearing that brought me more joy than I thought possible. I’d expected to be met with disbelief or denial from her, but instead, I found validation. I may not look or sound the part (yet, I hope) but there was still something about me that had gotten Leona across to her.

 

“You said you fell for my fiction, nearly spit out the word like it was filthy or wrong, but just because something’s fiction doesn’t make it a lie. Themes, messages… even feelings that are poured into a story, you can’t tell me those can’t be real.”

Ralee’s throat rattled with a strained chuckle that sounded somewhere between hurt and disbelief. “Oh, so you’re going to say that you care about me then? That’s it? You don’t even know me.”

 

“I don’t know you, not really. I’d only ever seen you through Leon, in the context of whatever story I was trying to tell. Before this week, I had always thought you were some perfect partner. Someone whose flaws even sparkled like diamonds. Then you stole my car… more than once. You dragged me every which way with you to find Leona, basically taking over all of my time and energy to settle your own desire. You single-mindedly obsessed over your own problems while treating me like little more than an afterthought that could help you out from time to time. Really, my idealized vision of you couldn’t have been farther from the truth!”

 

“Wow, you sure know how to sweet-talk a girl.”

 

“Oh, right, and the snark that’s equal parts charming and annoying!” Ralee rolled her eyes. “You aren’t some picture-perfect manicured character… you’re real! You are so much more than I’d ever seen before and it’s incredible.”

 

The plate between us was nearly empty, as Ralee slowly picked at the remaining morsels. “And what’s your point; I’m human? Gee, I had no idea.”

 

“My point is, we’re both guilty of the same crime here.” Ralee paused, the last bite dangling off her fork. “I only saw what I wanted to see of you, and you did the same with Leona. You had your problems with Leon outside of the story, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Beyond the good times and the tender moments, what did you know about Leona… about me? Did you know that despite my fascination with the paranormal, I’m probably the biggest chicken who ever lived? Or how about how lazy I am? I once convinced a customer’s kid that yelling at the top of their lungs whenever a plate or cup in the restaurant was emptied was a game, just so I didn’t have to keep checking on my tables.” The woman across from me couldn’t help but laugh at the mental image of a five-year-old going off like a human alarm clock in a crowded dining room. “Hell, I’m so poor I’ve painted over my car’s safety check sticker five years running now just so I wouldn’t have to pay to fix everything that’s wrong with it… that thing is a terrible accident waiting to happen!”

 

The fork Ralee had been holding was placed back on the plate, last bite still intact. “You know, if you’re trying to sell yourself here, you’re doing a piss poor job.”

 

“Good, this isn’t a pitch it’s a warning label: I suck!” The two of us couldn’t help but laugh at the farce this night had become. “I’m still not sure who I really am, to be honest. I guess when you spend so long trying to convince yourself that you’re ‘normal’ you lose sight of everything that makes you more than that. All I know is that I’m not Leon, despite the sights and sounds to the contrary. I am Leona, I’m an absolute mess of a person that still can’t answer basic ass questions about herself and would rather bury herself in hobbies than try to figure important shit out.”

 

“And I’m Ralee, a self-centered and at times manipulative woman who’ll probably be thrown in jail for grand theft auto at some point in the future.”

 

Waving off her self-deprecation, I responded. “Please, the property stolen has to be worth at least five hundred dollars to be grand theft… if anything, you’re looking at petty theft auto.” Ralee smiled at my lame joke before grabbing her fork and stuffing the last bit into her mouth. “Guess time’s up, huh?”

 

With a shrug, Ralee made no effort to stand back up… instead, she leaned back into her seat. “I mean, it could be if you wanted… or, we could order some pie.”