Chapter Two: INTO THE UNKNOWN

Hanna

This place was a dump. 

No better way to put it. I stepped over more broken bottles than I cared to think about just to get to the front door of the small bungalow, all the while reciting to myself that I could’ve been sleeping in the street for the next few weeks.It was nearly midnight now. I watched Faith open the front door and push it open with a grunt.

“Okay, this place looks worse than I remember,” I heard her mutter to herself. I entered the house behind her.

The inside wasn’t altogether bad. There was a thick layer of dust over the floor, over the sparse furniture in the front room, everywhere. But the windows were intact, there was a forgotten couch I could dust and sleep on…

“I don’t…think this is a good idea anymore,” Faith said, turning to me. “Maybe we can…”

“No!” I practically screamed. I tried to relax. “No, it’s a great idea. Once I clean up I can actually stay here.”

“But it’s so…”

“Please,” I pleaded, voice cracking in that annoying way I hated. “I have no other option.”

She stared at me for a stressful amount of time, then sighed. “All right. But I will be back to check on you in the morning. I don’t like this place.”

I nodded vigorously, relieved.

“And I’m helping you clean out.”

I had no issue with that. We set to work in relative silence, using a discarded piece of cloth on the ground to wipe up surfaces, the couch most especially. I, the ultimate squeaky-clean woman, could not be bothered to wipe down the couch inside-out-left-to-right. I just wiped enough of it to fit my fairly small body, then tossed the cloth away and sat on it, heavy head in hands. Faith sat beside me.

“All right, I know you understand that this is a rather unusual situation. I’m housing you in a place I do not own without your payment, and it’s abandoned and appears unsafe.”

I nodded dumbly, exhaustion setting in.

“You have my number. It’s the office one, but just call anyway if you need me and I’ll answer. I’ll check in on you in the morning, and maybe then we can talk about your… situation.”

I appreciated that she didn’t say anything like “homeless” or “broke”. 

“And no one can know you’re here, or my boss will kill us both,” she added, a sympathetic look on her face. 

I smiled dully, understanding. I was basically squatting. Yay, me.

She left in a hurry, leaving me with a padlock and key. I stood in the center of the room, my only possessions a key and a phone, for several minutes. Finally, I shook myself back to life and checked the time to see it was early, 2 am.

So my tragedy happened yesterday, I thought numbly and climbed my new couch. Sleep claimed me faster than I ever thought it could.

Somehow, I woke up on the floor, with light on my face, streaming in from a hole in the ceiling that should definitely not have been there at all. I stared into the light for a while, letting my memory trickle back in.

I was not an emotional person. And yet, right out of sleep, I felt tears welling in my eyes as I thought of exactly how much I just lost.

The whole building was mine. Two flats, one of which was mine and the other rented. The land was still mine, but it was in shambles now.

The bar downstairs was just beautiful. Big Dreams, is a name I’ve always wanted to name my business forever. And I had it, and it was all gone.

Every single thing I owned. Clothes, accessories I’d stolen from the home I’d once had, gifts from my sister. The pretty hairpin, my first waitress uniform, the building papers, the Best Entertainment certificate I’d won at a town contest last year. All my assets. Property, cards.

Gone.

I sat up suddenly, determined to not be anything but objective towards this disaster that was my life. What was the next step?

Reconstruct my CV. Find a job. As soon as humanly possible. Get enough money to pay Faith when the time came, because I would pay her.

I stood up, feeling rather shaky, and added something to the top of that list, find a way to get breakfast.

I stepped out of my new house, careful to make sure I didn’t see any neighbors and that I locked up, and walked all around the street like an essentially homeless person, looking for somewhere to get a toothbrush, a change of clothes, and food.

Demi’s Diner. It was a cute little corner shop at the end of the street, and when I saw the frilly black décor around the name, I could taste pancakes.

Of course, I was right. The cashier, a pretty chocolate girl called Minnie, was smiley enough to brighten my day a little more. I ordered a dangerously high stack, with syrup and strawberries, and made a point to not look at my account balance after I made the transfer from my phone.

“Oh wait,” I called Minnie before she ran to serve the next customer. “Have a charger I could use?”

She offered me one, and I carried it and my order to a table and sat down. God, even the tables were small and cute. I was nearly in love with the place already.

Plugging in at a socket beside me, I ate and looked around me. I decided I’d ask later if they had any vacancies, to begin with, and if they didn’t, well, then the search began. But first, clothes and shower. It occurred to me that I didn’t even explore the rest of the house I was staying in, to know what worked and what I should be worried about. I didn’t even know if it had running water. I made a mental note to check the place out once I got back.

There was a shop right across the street. Silently thanking my lucky stars that I was killing two birds with one stone, I walked in. Clothes acquired(one pair of trousers and a shirt) and toothbrush and paste.

Walking home, I forced myself happy. It would be fine. I would be fine. I’d done it before, I would succeed yet again…

My door was open.

The door, which I’d double-checked to be sure it was locked, was wide open, one hinge broken. 

“What in the…”

I set the bag I was holding on the ground and picked up a broken, unhygienic bottle and took a cautious step closer. If my barely even new place had already been broken into, maybe I needed to actually expand my housing options. 

God, I couldn’t believe I didn’t even get to rest for 24 damn hours.

I got to the door and straightened my spine. It was my house after all. I just needed to pay for it, of course, but still. It was mine. Someone was trespassing.

“Who’s there?!” I shouted, brandishing my unhygienic bottle in front of me. “Get out of my house!”

I could hear that his shoes were expensive even before I saw him. And when he entered the living room, all broad-shouldered suit-clad, and met my eyes with those brown ones, I knew I was screwed.