Page 131 of Fraud
He wasn’t wrong when he’d said I wasn’t completely innocent in this. I’d done my fair share of lying even if it was mostly evading the truth.
A lie was a lie, right? Simple, white, or otherwise, it wasn’t the way to start a relationship.
Had we been doomed from the beginning?
With all these questions floating in my head, I decided there was only one place I could go to make sense of it all.
The one place I’d been avoiding for years.
My parents’ storage unit.
It was where I’d had all of their belongings sent to after my childhood home was sold. I could have kept it—the house with everything inside just the way they’d left it.
But, like the dining room table, it was a constant reminder of what I’d lost.
What had been stripped away from me.
Now, it seemed like it was the only place I could truly be close to them.
I texted Jane the address, knowing she’d eventually be looking for me. She agreed to meet me there in a bit, knowing I’d probably need some time alone.
Leaving the apartment that morning, seeing the cold gray sky left me feeling numb.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, I was positively brimming with happiness. It’d been oozing out of my pores, lightening my steps, and making me feel like the luckiest woman alive.
Today, I was visiting a furniture graveyard, hoping for an answer to a question I was too afraid to ask myself.
When trust was broken, could a second chance truly exist?
There was something altogether eerie about a storage unit. Walking down the long row of small garage doors, I couldn’t help but think of all the things stored behind those walls.
Lost memories waiting to be discovered.
Taking the forgotten key from my purse, I unlocked the padlock securing the door. It gave with a quick twist of my wrist, popping open with ease.
Now came the hard stuff.
I lifted the door, high enough to let myself and some much-needed light inside. Stepping underneath, I made my way through.
From the living room sofas to the giant sleigh bed I used to jump into when I was scared as a kid, it was all here.
Like a silent shrine to the life I’d once had.
I walked between my dad’s antique grandfather clock and my mom’s curio cabinet, now dusty from neglect. I brushed my fingers along the wood grain, remembering how I would stare up at it, begging my mom to let me touch everything inside.
“Maybe when you’re older, sweetheart,” she’d say as the young version of me would look up at the antique dolls with wonder.
It didn’t take me long to figure out how to get to those dolls myself. After watching my mother open the cabinet for cleaning, I’d mimicked her actions sometime later, pulling down the doe-eyed doll for myself. Being tiny and fairly clumsy, it was almost inevitable for the fragile little thing to break.
By the time my mom had found out, I’d already locked myself away in my room, crying for hours.
The door creaked open, and my mom’s shadow appeared on the pink carpet.
“There you are. I’ve been calling for you. Dinner is ready,” she said, taking several steps into the room.
“I’m so sorry, Mommy,” I cried, feeling terrible about my stupid choices. If I’d only stayed out like she’d told me.
“Sorry about what?” she asked, immediately moving to my side. There she saw the broken pieces of porcelain in my hands. “Oh, Katelyn,” she said softly, a pained look on her face.
