If I Were You Read Free Page A

furniture and boxes lining the walls, as well as what looks like
well-packaged artwork. A life left behind, forgotten. Who did that? Who left
things that they’d clearly cared about enough to neatly pack and organize them,
behind? I’m not buying the idea that some rich boyfriend had whisked this woman
away to some exotic life. No one who hadn’t seen bad luck, or maybe even
tragedy, did this. I’m not about to be a part of adding to this woman’s
troubles by selling off her things. Not this woman , I corrected myself. Rebecca
Mason is her name. That’s what the paperwork said, and as per the
management they couldn’t give me her phone number and ‘it’s disconnected
anyway’.
    “I’m going to find a way to contact you, and return your
things,” I whisper to the room, as if I’m speaking to Rebecca, and a chill
races down my spine. I feel like she is here, like I’m talking to her and it’s
downright creepy. Somehow, it makes me more determined to find her.
    I sigh with grim realization at what my vow means. I have to
invade her privacy and dig through her things to find a way to contact her, a
way to return what was left of her life. If she’s alive, I think grimly,
hugging myself.
    “Stop it,” I murmur, chiding myself. The Grim Reaper
mentality isn’t me. I don’t even like horror movies. The world has enough real
monsters without creating fictional monsters. 
    There really could be a happy reason Rebecca left her life
behind. Winning the lotto. There. Yes. There was a good reason to leave all
your things behind. Unlikely, but still possible. Ten million to one or so, I
imagine, but possible. So why does the idea do absolutely nothing to dismiss
the eerie, hollow feeling of the room?
    Eager to get this over with, I drop my purse to the ground
and run my hands down my soft, faded jeans, scanning the items around me until
my gaze catches on a box neatly labeled "personal papers". Seems a
good place to find contact information, if I ever saw one.
     
    ***
     
    Two hours later I am sitting against a wall, thumbing
through information I have no business seeing. School records, bills, legal
paperwork that amounted to pennies of inheritance from the death of Rebecca’s
mother and last living relative, three years before. I think of my own mother,
of the woman who’d tried so hard to shelter me from my father, but would never
do anything to shelter herself. I squeeze my eyes shut, wondering if the pain
of losing her will ever go away. If it will ever go away. She’d been my
best friend, my closest confidante. I wonder if Rebecca was close to her
mother, as I was mine? If she’d hurt as I did with my loss, as I still do .
    With effort, I refocus on the paperwork, and realize I’m not
going to find any family connections to reach Rebecca. But thankfully, the mail and
a bunch of bank statements have, at least, given me her address though I’m not
overly certain it will be accurate.
    Feeling not much closer to finding Rebecca, I shove
everything back in the box and stand up, feeling stiff and cramped in a way
that defies my morning jogs.  
    “Try the dresser,” comes a male voice from behind me.
    I yelp and whirl around to find a man wearing a staff shirt
standing in the doorway. The hair on the back of my neck prickles, my nerve
endings humming with warning. He is a handsome man in his mid-thirties-—blond,
clean shaven, with short, spiky hair, but it’s the dark interest in his
deep-set eyes that sets me on edge. The already small room seems to shrink and
close in on me, that eerie feeling I’ve been unable to shake no longer hollow
but focused on me, like an invisible weight on my shoulders and chest. 
    “Dresser?” I manage to croak despite the dryness in my
throat.
    “Everyone has a secret bedroom drawer,” he says. His voice
lowers, takes on a husky quality. “A place almost as personal as their soul.”
    I stiffen, a new rush of discomfort slicing through me. He's
been in here. I knew it