I paid a thousand dollars for a storage unit full of trash.
Not metaphorical trash — actual garbage.
And the worst part is that I wasn’t even surprised. Just tired. Tired enough to believe, for one stupid moment, that she might not screw me over again.
After I left the home I shared with Alex, I held on to the idea that my belongings were still there. My bedroom set, my books, my pictures, the furniture I’d worked years to collect. The last pieces of a life I had built. I couldn’t afford movers or a storage unit, so I convinced myself they were safe for now. Every time her boyfriend texted asking what I planned to do with “my stuff,” I told him the same thing: I’m coming for it. Be patient.
When I heard she was being evicted, I thought maybe this was my chance. I’d wait until she was gone and then gather what was left of my life. But when I finally walked into the house, it was empty. Not empty in the clean, fresh-start way — empty in the “someone gutted this place and left the scraps” way. Piles of garbage in the corners. No furniture. No belongings. No trace of me.
I texted Logan demanding answers. Nothing.
I should have let it go then. I should have accepted the loss. But hope is a stupid, stubborn thing.
A week later he texted again: everything had been put into a storage unit. All I had to do was pay her $1,000 and it would be mine. He even sent a photo — a unit packed to the ceiling. I recognized my couch, my TVs, a few familiar shapes. Enough to make me doubt my own instincts. Enough to make me think maybe, just this once, she wasn’t trying to hurt me.
I wrestled with it. I didn’t trust her, but replacing everything would cost more than the thousand. And I was tired — tired of losing, tired of starting over, tired of pretending I didn’t care about the things that made my life feel normal.
So I paid.
She met me at the unit, signed it over, took the envelope of cash, and left. She handed me a small box, it contained my grandmothers bible, a metal box my daughter made full of letters and cards from my children and a few important things that meant a lot to me. For a moment, I felt relief. Maybe she wasn’t a complete monster. Maybe she had a sliver of a heart left.
That illusion lasted exactly as long as it took the movers to open the door.
Every item they pulled out was smashed, ruined, or never mine to begin with. The TV was shattered. The couch was missing its cushions. The furniture was junk she’d collected from God knows where. My belongings — the real ones — were gone.
In the back were a few boxes I recognized, the ones I had packed before I left. I opened them and found not my things, but literal household garbage. She had gone through my boxes, taken anything of value, and filled the rest with trash.
I stood there in the middle of a storage unit full of broken things and realized she had broken the last of mine too.
I went home to an apartment with no beds, no blankets, no dishes. Back to an air mattress. Back to sitting on the floor. Back to the feeling that fate was still punishing me while she walked away with everything.
Sometimes I wonder where my things ended up. Who sleeps in the bed I once adored. Whether someone is wearing my clothes, my shoes, my jewelry, my life.
I’ll never know.
But I do know this: she was first on my shit list, and she’ll stay there as long as I live.
Still missing the reminants of my old life,
K.
Read more about the mess I’ve been trying to survive, →
I'm Still Here. Somehow... 