by Mia Archer
I sat back down at the computer and sighed. Normally if I wanted to get my mind away from things all I’d log into Tales of Elassa and forget about the real world for a little while. Only as I stared at the icon I realized that the last thing in the world I wanted to do was anything related to Kaitlyn Morgan’s cash cow.
Damn it.
I really did feel like a hole had been ripped in my life, and not just because of the way my world had been ripped apart with the revelation that Kaitlyn Morgan was something of a lady cad. Not just because of the evening’s drama.
I was starting to realize just what a big part of my life Elassa actually was. The books, the miniseries, the damn videogame where I did most of my socializing. The game which was my main creative outlet. It was starting to sink in that I wasn’t going to be able to enjoy any of that ever again. Even as I sat staring at my computer’s desktop, stared at the Tales of Elassa icon, I couldn’t bring myself to click it.
Looking at that icon made me want to throw my laptop across the room. I felt a white-hot rage burning inside me at how I’d been treated. Walking around my favorite in-game environments was just going to remind me of the failed romance with the woman who created all of it. With the woman who’d just single-handedly ruined any enjoyment of something that’d been a huge part of my life for so very long.
Damn it. Damn her! And not just for playing with my emotions, not just for treating me like a booty call, but for taking away something that brought so much of pleasure to my life!
I was about to close down my computer entirely, it looked like the only thing I could do was sleep since my usual evening hobby was a bust, when there was a buzz from the elevator. Megan looked up from the massive couch in the center of our suite where she was watching TV. She got up and walked to the elevator.
“Did you order room service or something?”
“No, what about you?”
“Nope. I have no idea who the hell that could be,” I said.
I looked down at my laptop screen and then I turned and held a hand out towards Megan as she hit a button to let whoever that was onto the elevator. Not the smartest move, but we were from a college town where crime wasn’t really a thing. Not that it mattered. That wasn’t a hardened criminal buzzing us. No, it suddenly hit me exactly who it would be, and it wasn’t anyone that I wanted to talk to, damn it!
“Megan! No!”
Only the damage was already done. The door swished open and she was standing there. Kaitlyn. And she looked super pissed off.
20: Trust Issues
“You can’t come in here,” Megan said.
Good ol’ Megan. I felt warm and fuzzy all over as she told Kaitlyn to get lost. Only this wasn’t her battle to fight. No, I needed to take care of this.
“I need to talk to Amber,” Kaitlyn said. She peered past Megan and locked eyes with me. “Did you hear me? I need to talk to you Amber!”
I walked up to the door as Megan leapt to my defense. “What’s the matter? Upset you didn’t get your evening booty call like you were planning?”
I put a hand on the Megan’s arm. “I’ve got this, but thanks.”
“You sure?” Megan asked.
“I’m sure. This won’t take long,” I said with a pointed look at Kaitlyn.
Megan shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll be in my room. If you need me to call the cops just yell.”
I turned back to Kaitlyn as Megan made her way back to her room. “What do you want?”
“I just want to talk to you,” Kaitlyn said, pleading in her eyes. Pleading that almost made me feel sorry for her. Almost. “Can I come in?”
“No,” I said. Even after everything that had happened that "no" was still fucking difficult to get out, but I’d done it. She could fuck off as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t interested in anything she had to say, only she insisted on continuing to talk.
“I was terrified when I saw you sitting with Carrie,” she said.
I arched an eyebrow. “Oh? Afraid I’d learn the truth?”
“What you heard from her was a version of the truth,” she said.
“A version of the truth? She said you had some fun with her over a convention weekend a couple of years back and then you left her high and dry. That you told her you weren't ready to tell the world about the two of you and you ended it. That sounds a little different from the story you told me earlier, but it also sounds pretty damn familiar!”
Kaitlyn's shoulders slumped and once more I felt vindicated. I felt like I’d been absolutely correct. And at the same time I hated that I was absolutely correct. It was silly, but there was still a part of me that very much wished I’d been wrong.
“Okay, so I know that looks bad. And what she said was more or less what happened. We had a little fun at this convention a couple of years ago, but I decided things weren’t going to work out between us. Because things weren't going to work out between us and not because I was afraid of... you know. I mean I guess that was part of it, but it was like the fifth or sixth down on a laundry list of reasons..."
Kaitlyn paused. Took a deep breath. Let it out. I crossed my arms and let her take her time. It's not like I had anything better to do since she'd ruined every form of entertainment I enjoyed.
"Listen, the point is I broke things off on the last day and she’s never been happy about it. It’s always made coming to the convention a little awkward because she always uses that bullshit story to gain sympathy with some of the volunteer organizers and get a spot close to me. They're more than happy to annoy me because they're annoyed about the next book being delayed, and when I saw her talking to you…”
“You mean when you saw her actually getting a chance to talk to me and telling me the truth about who you are? What you were really doing with this whole Cinderella song and dance?”
“That’s not who I am and that's not what I was doing with you!”
I heard a door open and turned to see Megan sticking her head out. I shook my head slightly and waved her off. Let her know that everything was okay. That Kaitlyn hadn’t gone completely crazy. Yet.
“I tried to explain this to you earlier,” she said. “You have no idea what this can be like. What people act like around me. How much could be at stake if I...”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Poor little rich and famous girl hiding from what she is. Life’s so hard you can’t even finish the latest book in your series.”
“Yeah, that’s part of the reason,” she said. “I deal with this all the time. All Carrie was interested in was Kaitlyn Morgan the famous writer. Kaitlyn Morgan the rich author. You’re not like that! You’re different!”
I couldn’t help but laugh as she said that. “Different? I’m different? Why would you expect me to actually believe that line of bullshit?”
“Because it’s true!”
I felt lightheaded. I felt darkness moving in around the edges of my vision and I was falling forward. I managed to throw my hand out to steady myself against the elevator door even as her hands reached out and encircled my waist causing a weird conflicting mix of emotions to wash over me.
Oh how I wanted what she said to be true. How I wanted to believe her. For that matter how I loved the feel of her hands wrapped around my waist holding me there. It was almost enough to make me forget everything that had happened, but not quite. It was too much. The damage was too great.
And so that mixture of longing, of wishing she would finally tell me the truth, was replaced by something else. By anger. White-hot anger. I looked up and locked eyes with her.
“Get your hands off of me,” I growled.
Kaitlyn's eyes widened and she took a step back. her hands left me and I felt a pang of disappointment even as I felt a perverse satisfaction at that hurt look on her face. Good. Let her feel hurt. Let her feel some of the disappointment that I'd had to deal with as I sat in the glow of a laptop screen trying to find a flight out of this place.
I poked her in the chest and she took another step back, but
that didn't stop her from talking. Still trying to convince me that I was all wrong about her. Fat chance that was going to happen, though, because she was addressing all the wrong things. No, ultimately it came down to one very important thing. This was still new. This was still very early days, but if she couldn't be honest about who she was, if she couldn't go out on a limb for me when I was going out on a fucking limb by having the entire world shifting underneath me regarding my own sexuality, then I couldn't see myself having a future with her.
I'd go back to school. I'd have to come to terms with this new part of me, with what I'd learned about myself over my whirlwind romance with the great and very female Kaitlyn Morgan, without the great Kaitlyn Morgan actually in my life. Though I suppose I could be thankful that she introduced me to this side of me even if she broke my heart in the process.
Still she rambled on. About the wrong damn thing.
“You don’t understand. Carrie is crazy! Did she tell you everything? Did she tell you how she spent that entire weekend gushing about how she couldn’t believe she was with Kaitlyn Morgan? Did she mention how I took her to dinner on Friday night and the next day she tried to use the fact that she was my “girlfriend” to bully people in the dealer hall into giving her free stuff, and when that didn’t work she tried to get them to expense it to my account? After I specifically told her that wasn't what we were, which is a big difference from you? Did she tell you how I didn’t find out about any of that until I discovered her trying to break into my laptop so she could get at my notes and figure out what was going to happen next in the story? I can’t even bring my laptop to these conventions anymore because of her! We didn’t even have sex! She’s a crazy who meant nothing to me!”
I took a deep breath. She might have a point. I could understand where she was coming from after everything that had happened to her with the crazy. But it still didn’t change the lies or the secrecy or anything that had been bothering me today that she hadn't really addressed by trying to pin the blame on one crazy person.
“She sounds crazy. I could tell from talking to her,” I said.
Kaitlyn breathed a sigh of relief. She smiled at me as though she thought that made everything better. But it wasn’t. How I wished it was, but it wasn’t.
“But none of that changes the fact that you lied to me and you're ashamed of who you are. How could you possibly think we had any sort of future together if you aren't even willing to admit your feelings to the world? What makes you think I'd want to be with someone who's ashamed to admit she's in a relationship with me?"
Kaitlyn opened her mouth as though she was about to say something but I held up a hand to stop her. I wasn't in the mood for more excuses so I just rolled right over her. "Better to go home and find a girl I can explore this with. Publicly. Even if I am somehow different from this Carrie girl it's meaningless if you won't even entertain the idea of telling the world I'm different. If you won't even consider that then how am I supposed to believe I’m somehow different from any other girl you brought to a convention, banged, and then tossed aside when you were done with her?”
“I didn’t bang her!” Kaitlyn said.
“Yeah, the jury’s still out on that. Why should I believe you there given all the other crazy lies?”
“But this is different…”
“Different? I don’t think you’ve told me a single true thing the entire time we’ve known each other! And you expect me to start believing you now?”
Her mouth worked silently for a moment but she obviously couldn’t think of anything good to say. Obviously couldn’t think of a good defense.
“My biggest regret is that I think I was really starting to fall for you,” I said. “But after all the lies and half-truths, after all this talk of hiding a new part of me that I'm pretty damn excited to explore now that I've discovered it, I don’t think I could be with you in your closet. So I’m leaving tomorrow. You won’t have me to kick around anymore.”
And then I hit a button and the elevator door closed in her face. I heard one last “Amber, wait!” but that didn’t stop me. I leaned against the door and slid down. I felt tears come to my eyes and then I was sobbing. How I wanted to believe her. How I wanted her to be telling the truth. Only I was completely right. How could I explore this wonderful new thing I'd discovered about myself, about my sexuality, with someone who was still ashamed of her own feelings and, by extension, ashamed of me in her own little way?
I couldn't live like that, but I’d have plenty of time to think about that when I got home. Right now I just needed to cry.
21: Leaving
I sighed as I got everything together in my backpack. It was amazing how everything I’d planned on wearing for the convention could fit into one oversized laptop backpack. Oh well. I always traveled light. And I suppose that was a good thing this time.
I briefly considered going down to the dealer hall to get a souvenir, but ultimately I decided against it. Anything I bought down there would be related to Elassa. Even if I could find something that wasn’t related to the books in any way it’d still have the taint of this trip. No, better to just cut ties completely and get the hell out of here.
I paused in the suite wondering if I should bother Megan, but decided against it. I wanted her to enjoy the rest of her weekend. I wanted her to have a good time even if I couldn’t. At least somebody should get some enjoyment out of that suite and VIP tickets.
Of course she was waiting for me when I stepped out of my room.
“Trying to sneak away?” she asked with a grin.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Not happening without me,” she said.
"What makes you say that?" I asked.
"Because I know how much money you have in your bank account right now and that's not enough to cover a trip to the airport. Now let’s go get you a cab.”
She had a point, so as much as I hated to take more money from her I figured I was stuck depending on her charity one more time. Normally I would protest, but I needed to get the hell out of here as quickly as possible so I made an exception this one time. We stepped out of the elevator and I went for the hotel lobby but Megan grabbed my arm and pulled me towards one of the skywalks. The skywalk that led from the hotel to the convention center.
I stopped.
“I’m not going to the convention,” I said.
“Of course you’re not going to the convention. You’re going to the front of the convention center to get a cab. Have you ever tried getting a cab at a hotel first thing in the morning when all the hung over business types are trying to leave after a night of schmoozing and partying with a bunch of people they don't really like in a desperate bid to make money? It’s not fun,” Megan said.
I rolled my eyes but followed her. She had a weird way of being right about that sort of thing. Maybe I would save time by going to the convention center. I still had plenty of time to get to the airport, but I didn’t want to cut things too close. Not that I had much choice but to follow her seeing as how she was the one who'd be paying my way.
And so I found myself walking through the elevated tunnels to the convention center with Megan walking in silence beside me. The convention center was the last place in the world I wanted to go right now with all of its reminders of yesterday and how wonderful that day had been before everything came crashing down around me. I wiped moisture away from my eyes. Damn it. I didn’t want Megan to see me like this. I wasn’t going to think about that. I wasn’t going to think about Kaitlyn. I just needed to get the hell out of here before I lost it.
Megan kept glancing over to me but whenever I looked back at her she was staring straight ahead with a weird look on her face. Maybe she noticed the tears? Maybe she actually wanted to give me a moment of privacy for a change? That didn't sound like the nosy Megan I knew, the only thing that could keep her from poking her nose into my love life was a raid night and even that was only a temporary reprieve, but maybe today was different.
W
e went down an escalator from the skywalk into the convention center and what I saw there amazed me even as it filled me with apprehension. The place seemed oddly deserted. Eerily deserted. The convention center was packed yesterday and today was supposed to be even busier, Saturday was supposed to be the biggest day for attendance since only the diehards who took time off of work were there for Thursday and Friday, but there wasn’t a single person around.
Only the place was like something out of one of those cheesy post-apocalyptic movies that showed abandoned infrastructure improbably hanging around for more than a few hundred years after there were no humans around to maintain it anymore. No convention center staff. No attendees. Sure this was just a hall feeding from various hotels into the convention center but I still figured it’d be packed like yesterday. Had the thing been called off for today and I didn’t get the memo or something?
“What’s going on here?” I asked.
“No idea,” Megan said. “I thought you didn’t care about the convention?”
I frowned. “I don’t. Let’s go get a cab.”
I sighed and we made our way towards where the actual convention was happening. Surely there’d be somebody there. Only the emptiness continued as we made our way through the convention center. The place was a complete ghost town. Where the hell was everybody? It was like one of those twilight zone episodes where somebody finds themselves in an alternate dimension or something, only there wasn't a creepy guy in a suit to explain that everything was about to go to hell for me. That eerie emptiness continued right up to the moment we rounded a corner and stepped into the massive two floor hall that ran next to the Elassa Con dealer hall.
I stopped and stared.
We’d found everybody.
The main concourse was open on the second floor allowing people to walk the halls upstairs and look down on the first floor. Every railing on the second floor was lined with people staring down. All the walls along the first floor were lined with people as well. They were packed at least ten deep running down the entire length of the convention center. And there at the end, near the entrance that opened out onto one of the streets in downtown Indy, stood a lone figure.