Chapter 21 - Simone
Tanya almost hung up.
She was tired of discoveries attached to Raymond.
“What did he leave in my name?”
Simone Cole spoke carefully.
“A storage unit.”
Tanya frowned.
“I don’t have a storage unit.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Simone explained.
Years earlier, during her marriage to Raymond, he frequently rented storage spaces when moving equipment, furniture, and business inventory.
After their divorce, she occasionally received misdirected collection notices because he reused old information.
Recently, a notice reached Simone regarding a unit rented under Tanya Johnson / Raymond Cole.
“I searched your name,” Simone said. “Found a number.”
Tanya’s pulse rose.
“Is there debt?”
“About six hundred dollars.”
“I never signed anything.”
“Then don’t assume you owe it.”
The advice sounded strangely familiar.
Document.
Verify.
Do not panic-pay.
Tanya asked Simone to send the notice.
Then she called the storage company directly using its public number rather than information Raymond might have provided.
The manager confirmed a unit existed.
An online rental agreement contained Tanya’s name.
The signature looked typed rather than handwritten.
The payment card belonged to Raymond.
Tanya denied authorizing the account.
The company began its internal dispute process and requested documentation.
No immediate catastrophe.
Still, Tanya felt violated.
Again, her name had been used.
She called Malik.
He listened quietly.
“What are you going to do?”
“Follow the dispute process.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s enough unless something else happens.”
Malik smiled.
“Look at you.”
“What?”
“Not turning a letter into the apocalypse.”
She laughed weakly.
“Growth.”
Simone later met Tanya for coffee.
Yvette came too.
Not as backup in a confrontation.
As a second set of ears.
Simone was forty-five, composed, wearing hospital scrubs after a nursing shift.
“I’m not here to trash Raymond,” she said.
Tanya appreciated that.
“I am.”
Yvette received a glare.
Simone almost smiled.
“My marriage ended because Raymond kept building futures with money that didn’t exist.”
Tanya felt cold.
“Businesses?”
“Three that I know of.”
“What happened?”
“Mostly nothing. Plans. Loans. Equipment. He likes the beginning of things.”
That sentence explained Raymond better than any accusation.
“He made you feel like the next deal would fix the last one?” Tanya asked.
Simone nodded.
“Yes.”
Tanya looked down.
“He did.”
“He wasn’t always lying. Sometimes he believed it too.”
That complicated Tanya’s anger.
Raymond was not necessarily a mastermind calculating every step.
He was perhaps something more common.
A man who believed optimism entitled him to other people’s resources.
Simone continued.
“He used my credit once without telling me. That ended us.”
Tanya looked sharply up.
“Did you report it?”
“I disputed the account. He paid it after I threatened legal action.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
Simone’s expression tightened.
“I didn’t know you.”
Fair.
“And Raymond told me his next girlfriend knew what she was getting into.”
Tanya laughed bitterly.
“I didn’t.”
“No.”
Simone stirred her coffee.
“But I also stayed after warning signs. That part belongs to me.”
Tanya nodded slowly.
She understood that now.
Before they left, Simone said, “One thing.”
“What?”
“If he ever tells you I took everything in the divorce, don’t believe it.”
Tanya smiled despite herself.
“He said that.”
“Of course.”
“What happened?”
“I bought him out of a used truck and kept my own retirement. He called that robbery for three years.”
Yvette laughed loudly.
Tanya laughed too.
The spell finally broke.
Raymond’s stories had once felt like secret truths.
Now they sounded repetitive.
Back at the house, Tanya found an old photograph of herself and Raymond tucked behind a frame.
She looked happy.
That mattered too.
Not every moment had been fake.
She refused to rewrite the relationship into four years of pure deception.
He had made her laugh.
Helped with repairs.
Held her after bad days.
Cooked breakfast.
He had also lied, manipulated, borrowed, taken, and used Malik’s reliability as household revenue.
Both histories could exist.
That evening she placed the photograph in a box.
Not trash.
Just no longer displayed.
At Malik’s apartment, another major conflict reached resolution.
Yvette arrived with a cashier’s check.
$3,000.
Malik stared.
“What is this?”
“I sold some old investment shares.”
“Auntie.”
“I did not touch retirement.”
“Why three thousand?”
“I want to clear part of what I owe.”
He hesitated.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
No guilt.
No condition.
He accepted.
Yvette’s remaining balance fell dramatically.
Malik deposited the check into his education savings.
That night his balance passed $10,000 for the first time.
He stared at it.
Not because he planned to hoard it forever.
Because it represented restored options.
School.
A better laptop.
Emergency cushion.
Future transfer to a four-year program if he chose.
Money was no longer only what disappeared.
It could create choices.
Then Tanya called.
“The storage company removed my name.”
“Good.”
“They confirmed the account was created online from Raymond’s email.”
“You owe anything?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Pause.
“Malik?”
“Yeah?”
“I think I’m selling the house.”
This time she sounded certain.
“When?”
“After summer.”
He sat quietly.
Tanya continued.
“I met with a realtor. If the numbers hold, after mortgage, selling costs, and moving expenses, I can buy a smaller condo with a manageable payment.”
“What changed?”
“I realized I’ve spent years asking who sacrificed to save this house.”
She paused.
“I never asked whether the house still fits my life.”
Malik smiled.
“So you’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then sell it.”
Tanya inhaled.
“You’re not angry?”
“Why would I be?”
“Grandma’s money went into it. Yours too.”
Malik looked around his apartment.
“That doesn’t mean we have to live inside our old decisions forever.”
Tanya went silent.
Then she whispered, “Thank you.”
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But selling the house would force one final question.
How much of the equity belonged morally—not legally—to the people whose sacrifices had kept it standing?
