The Seven Drawers

by Kendra E. Ardnek

  “It reeks of Opal,” said Charcoal. “And you reek of lies and deceit.”

  My stomach sank. “Ebony, why?”

  Here it was: proof of her betrayal. In this realm, at least. Maybe…

  “Your family has been in power long enough already,” she finally spat at me, her expression hardening.

  “That isn’t for you to determine,” Charcoal answered, blowing a puff of smoke into her face, which sent her into a coughing fit.

  I sighed, suddenly exhausted. “Charcoal, not here. Just pick her up and follow me. I was going to go ahead and break your spell, but it looks like it’ll be best to leave it for a little while longer. It’ll probably come in handy against Opal, anyway.”

  With that, I bent down and plucked the diamond from Ebony’s hand.

  5

  The Comb

  “And what will you have, Senorita?”

  I blinked as I returned to the eighth realm, finding myself sitting in a Mexican restaurant. Espejo. The restaurant where Jeremy I had gone on our first date, just weeks after I’d been released from the hospital, after nearly dying.

  “Senorita?”

  My attention snapped back to the waiter, here to take our order.

  “Food!” I quickly declare, buying myself some time as my memories swirled and I readjusted to Gwen. “I’ll have, food, definitely. Let’s see…” I quickly glance down and scavenge the menu in my hands, looking for something to leap out at me.

  “She’ll have a taco salad with beef and Italian dressing,” Jeremy interrupted before I could find anything. “Thank you, sir.”

  And, with that, he removed the menu from my hands, handed it to the waiter, and nodded as the man retreated.

  “Really?” I swung my gaze back to Jeremy and folded my arms over my chest. “Maybe I didn’t want a taco salad.”

  He tilted his head back and stared at me askance. “And maybe pigs can fly. Gwen, you were about to spend the next five minutes hemming and hawing, and, ultimately, would still have gone with your comfortable regular. I just cut us to the chase.”

  There was his mischievous grin, and I couldn’t help myself. I grinned back.

  “I’ve missed you, Jer.”

  “Well, of course you have,” he answered, the grin twisting into a smirk. “Look at you – you’ve half-starved yourself with your indecision.”

  I glanced down sheepishly. “What can I say? I’ve been nothing but a mess these last two months.”

  “Clearly.” The mischief fell from his voice. “Gwen, promise me you won’t ever play a game of hide-and-go-seek with us like this, ever again. I don’t know if my heart can take it.”

  I met his eye again, this time with a smirk of my own. “I promise, the next time Editha kicks me out of the house, I’ll be calling you first, not Rosa.”

  “Good.” He managed a half-hearted smile, but then he shook his head. “I still can’t believe that Rosa played you like that. Why? She’s been your best friend longer than I’ve known you – and that’s been a while. Was it jealousy? But I’ve never taken her for the jealous type – and you’ve always been so generous to her.”

  I frowned as I sorted through Gwen’s memories, recalling the conversation she’d shared with Jeremy in my absence. Apparently, he’d met with Rosa several times, and she’d each time claimed that she knew nothing of my well-being, either. That I was also refusing to see her – even as I slept on her couch.

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head, Ebony betrayal playing fresh in my mind to echo it. “I just don’t know.”

  “Well, we agreed to not talk about her,” he declared, picking up a chip and dipped it into a bowl of hot sauce that was nearly yellow, he’d added so much squeezable butter to it.

  I shook my head. For a guy who loves Mexican food, he really can’t handle spice.

  “I’ve found you again, and that’s what matters,” he concluded.

  I smirked again. “I found myself, Jeremy, and then Williams arranged the reunion between us.”

  “For which I’m eternally grateful.”

  We fell silent, and I took the opportunity to finish sorting through Gwen’s memories while I was busy with Ivory – mostly paying attention to the conversation shared with Jeremy. I didn’t want to revisit another conversation that we’d already laid to rest, as it seemed that I’d just tried to do.

  “You know, it’s a shame,” Jeremy suddenly spoke up. “You were so close to having your business degree – and with it, you’d probably have gotten a much better job than as a waitress at one of Editha’s restaurants. It occurred to me that you would be already graduated had you not fallen behind a year when you were sixteen, and we wouldn’t be here.”

  I grabbed a chip of my own and dipped it into of guacamole, glancing about the restaurant. “Oh, I think that you would still have found an excuse to come here. Espejo is your favorite place to eat, and we always find ourselves here.”

  And, when confronted with the scarcity of food in my apartment, he’d naturally insisted on taking me out.

  Jeremy shifted, and I could see him mentally backtracking. “Well, I mean … more your general situation, Gwen. How different would things be if you’d already graduated?”

  I tilted my head to the side as I considered. “Honestly, I don’t know how different. I got the job I did because it’s the one Rosa directed me to – she works at Apple Pancakes, after all. I wasn’t in an ambitious mood. Besides, not graduating is the least of my regrets when it comes to that year.”

  His eyebrow arched. “Oh?”

  I shrugged, not sure how to explain all of my recent discoveries concerning Editha blackmailing my father with my cure. “I nearly died when I was sixteen, Jeremy,” I finally admitted. “I still have issues with my heart to this day. And … other things. Lately, I wonder if I was worth the lengths that my father went to save me.”

  It surprised me to admit it, but the words were almost cathartic – like I was finally ripping off the bandage of an old wound.

  All humor fell from Jeremy’s face, and he looked at me with the most pained expression I’d ever seen him wear. He reached across the table and took my hand. “Gwen, promise me that you won’t ever let me hear you question your worth ever again. I just spent the last two months worried out of my mind about you, and now that I just found out how close I came to losing you…” He shook his head. “Gwen, I don’t know what I’d do without you. When we nearly lost you six years ago … Gwen, your father was willing to go to any length, and I…” He tightened his hold of my hand. “You are worth any measure that he might have taken.”

  I managed a smile, knowing that he meant to reassure me, though it only added to the sense of guilt that had been eating me. I knew now what price my father had paid for my health, and it seemed a horrid exchange to me. His life. Everything he’d worked for…

  He’d bargained without even knowing what he gave.

  “I just wish Dad were still here,” I finally said, closing my eyes. “I feel so lost without him.”

  “I can only imagine.” Jeremy tightened his hold of my hand. “If you thought that I’d abandoned you, you must have been messed up. You know I never would. I love you, Gwen.”

  My cheeks grew warm, and I ducked my head. “I know. I just … forgot.”

  “That’s why I’m here to remind you. Don’t run off on me again. I don’t think that either of us could bear it.”

  No, we definitely couldn’t, but before I could answer him, our food arrived.

  I’m not sure if I’d ever had a better taco salad than that one I had that day. Perhaps it was nostalgia, perhaps it was relief as my life had finally taken a turn for the brighter, and perhaps it was a combination thereof. I just knew that it was amazing. Jeremy was right. A day might come when I would deviate from my favorite, but a day might also come when he would choose some other restaurant. This was not the day for either change to happen.

  “So, how are things going with those tasks your father set for you?” Jerem
y asked as we were finishing our food. “Do I need to drive you back to the apartment yet, or would you mind if I take you somewhere else first?”

  I paused a moment. Before he’d taken me out to Espejo, I’d told him that I didn’t know yet when I had to move on to the next step of my father’s instructions and was at liberty to do as I liked in the interim.

  “Honestly, I am ready to move forward and make the next step, and I do need to,” I answered, cracking the side off from the shell of my taco salad. “But if you have somewhere else you’d like to take me, I’m not in too much of a hurry.”

  There were only two drawers left, and I wasn’t ready to face them yet after Ebony’s betrayal.

  “Sounds good.” Jeremy shoved the last bite of his Quesadilla into his mouth and left the table to pay the bill.

  I frowned as he disappeared. Our dates were normally Dutch treat as I was the richer of us and I refused to let him spend his hard-earned money on me if I could help it. In fact, I would have paid for him, too, if he’d let me. Unfortunately, he was as stubborn as I and refused to let me any more than I would him.

  Tonight, I had no money of my own to waste, and we both knew it. There was no point in me even offering. He didn’t mind – he’d frequently complained that he wanted to do things like that for me – but, to me, it was just another reminder of everything Editha had stolen from me.

  “Almost done with that?” Jeremy asked, returning to the table and pointing to my plate. My salad was reduced to mere pieces of the salad shell, drenched in Italian dressing.

  “Just about.” I gave a heavy sigh and poked at the soggy, broken chips, my appetite suddenly gone.

  “Gwen, are you all right?” Jeremy’s voice shifted to concern. He rushed to my side and put a hand on my shoulder.

  “I’m fine,” I tried to assure him, but my voice choked on the attempt. Taking a shaking breath, I changed my tone. “Okay. No, I’m not. I’m the furthest thing from ‘fine.’ Everything is different, everything is wrong, and I don’t … I don’t…”

  I couldn’t finish. The threat of tears was too strong.

  Jeremy dropped to my eye level and cupped his other hand to my cheek. “Gwen, I know. And I know that things will never go back to the way they were. They can’t. But that doesn’t mean that they’ll always be wrong. Okay? I promise you, one of these days, everything will be right again, even if it’s a completely different ‘right’ than it was before.”

  I managed a smile, blinking back tears, and then threw my arms around his neck. “Oh, Jer, I’ve missed you so much.”

  He rubbed my back. “I know. And I’m so sorry. I should have…” He slowly stood, pulling me to my feet with him. “I should have known something was wrong. I mean – no, I did know something was wrong. I just didn’t know what to do. I’d never felt so powerless, and I’m so sorry, Gwen.”

  “But you’re here now.” I borrowed my face deeper into his chest, relishing his arms around me. “Oh, Jer, you’re here now and please don’t leave me again.”

  Jeremy kissed the top of my head. “Not if I can help it. Now.” He removed my arms from his neck and gave me his best smile. “There’s somewhere I’d like to take you, remember, so … come on, yeah?”

  I nodded, slipping my hand into his, and he guided me out of the restaurant, pausing only to assure the lady at the front counter that I was completely fine, just still mourning my father. He took me to his car, helped me into the passenger seat, and then got in on the driver side. As soon as he’d started the car, he gave me back his hand, to which I clung tightly.

  I’d missed him so much those last two months, and having him back felt like broken pieces inside of me were finally starting to fit back together. With his hand in mine, I felt that I could finally breathe and stop fighting.

  Except the fight wasn’t over.

  And unlike six years before, when he’d helped me through my recovery from nearly dying, I didn’t know how he could help me now. Not here, as Jeremy, at any rate. How could he help me when he didn’t know the full story.

  “We’re here, Gwen,” Jeremy announced, jarring me out of my thought as he removed his hand from mine so he could stop the car.

  I frowned as I realized where he’d brought me. “The library, Jeremy?” I asked, as I opened my door and climbed out of the car. “It’s after-hours!”

  “Exactly.” Jeremy appeared on my side of the car and took my hand. “We won’t be distracted by the books and can focus on the nostalgia. This is where it all began, you know. Where we began, I mean. I still remember that day like it was yesterday. There I was, reading the latest fantasy novel, minding my own business, and then your father was there, asking what I was reading, declaring that it was your favorite, and then insisting that he introduce you to me. I don’t actually remember what book it was, but I do remember the first time I saw you – your pigtails and sparkly red dress. You were in a sparkly phase at the time. It was adorable.”

  I smiled, shaking my head at the memory. “I was thirteen. What can I say?”

  “And I can’t believe that it took me another three years and nearly losing you before I realized that you were the love of my life.”

  I shook my head again as he guided me into the library courtyard. I also remembered that day well: my confusion at why my father wanted to introduce me to the strange, fifteen-year-old boy, and it disappearing immediately at the instant familiarity between Jeremy and me.

  “We were tied together by fate,” I said, remembering my recent experiences in Ivory’s realm, where fate and destiny were considered with every decision faced. It was in that realm that I’d known Jeremy – or Charcoal – the longest, as my father had found him in my infancy.

  “Fate, eh? Are you sure that you’re the Gwen I know and love?” Jeremy glanced down at me with a raised eyebrow. “What happened to that skeptical girl who’d argue with your father that destiny is nothing but a crutch used by those who don’t have the courage to make their own path?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of changes these last two months, and with the tasks that my father left behind for me … I think I finally understand what he meant. Fate is less your choices predetermined and more … choices well-aligned.”

  He frowned, clearly confused by my explanation. “Ah.”

  “Sorry, I’m really still trying to work through it,” I admitted. “Maybe, when I understand it better, I’ll explain. Just know that I love you like I could love no one else.”

  “Ah. Good to know.”

  We fell to silence, each attending to our thoughts as we considered our past, present, and future. Mine wandered back to my former best friend, to the betrayal that I’d experience from her as Rosa and Ivory. Why had she done it? Was there betrayal from her in the other realms as well? Could I possibly reconcile with her after all of this was over, as I’d told Dianna I’d try to do?

  “I’ve spent a lot of time here, while you were missing,” he commented, after a moment. “Hoping in vain that I’d run into you again.”

  “I wanted to, but Rosa said that it’d be wallowing in my grief,” I muttered, shaking my head. “I shouldn’t have listened to her, I know, but I did. She did make sense, after all. I thought you’d…”

  “We’re not talking about her, though,” he reminded, tightening his hold on my hand. On a brighter note, I received a promotion in the last two months.”

  “You did?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, yes,” he assured me, grinning again. “I took the advantage of these last two months to work as hard as I could, and it paid off.” The grin faded. “I couldn’t justify doing anything fun when I knew you were so miserable – and I only knew the half of it!”

  “Hey, I don’t blame you for believing my stepmother’s deception.” I shook my head and squeezed his hand back. “You weren’t the only one.”

  “I know.” His smile returned. “And, you know, there was a third thing that I did in these last two months.”

  I glanced up at
him with a raised eyebrow of my own. “Really?”

  “Oh, yes,” he assured me. “I made a … certain purchase, with special plans for it. Hang on, I have it right here.”

  As I stared at him in confusion, he withdrew his hand from mine, stepped back, and pulled something from his pocket. My eyes widened as I realized that it was a small black box.

  “Jer…?”

  His grin was back, full force. “I have … a question to ask you. I wasn’t going to ask you until you graduated college, according to your father’s request, but suddenly you had nothing and were beholden to Editha to boot, which I knew you hated. My plan was to wait a few weeks, let you recover, and be your knight in shining armor as I gave you a way to begin a new life. A silly thought, I realize now, but I meant it all the same. And I mean it. Gwen, you might not have anything to your name anymore, but I never cared about your wealth before, so why should I now? It’s you I love, and I want to give you the world. So, will you let me? Here, let me do it properly.”

  Before I could say anything, he dropped to one knee before me, opening the box to reveal a sparkling ring.

  “Gwen, will you make me the luckiest man alive by agreeing to be my wife.”

  “Of course,” I answered, automatically. It was the most natural thing – and given that we were already engaged in the last two realms I’d visited, I’d somehow forgotten that we weren’t already here, as well. “Of course I will. Why wouldn’t I? I love you.”

  He beamed wildly as he fumbled the ring out of the box, slipped it onto my finger, and stood to claim a kiss from my lips.

  “But I can’t let you solve of my problems for me,” I added, as he pulled back from the kiss.

  He frowned. “But, Gwen…”

  “Jeremy, you are my knight in shining armor – and you always will be.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and gave him a reassuring smile. “But I don’t want to marry you because it will make my life perfect any more than you wanted to marry me because my dad was rich, okay?”