Episode 4 – Hotel Orlando

Hotel Orlando is a manor located in a picturesque land, far from the noise of the city. It is surrounded by lakes, meadows, and forests. It resembles a castle, but on a smaller scale. It is beautiful, but unfortunately, it is a toxic place.

The owner of the hotel is Bruce, but he is never there. He owns several other hotels in distant locations and focuses his attention on them instead. Harley is Bruce’s daughter, who recently moved into the hotel and takes care of it. She doesn’t receive a salary, but in return, she lives there for free. Harley is the most beautiful woman one could ever see. Every man who looks at her feels weak in the knees, his heart starts beating faster.

But Harley’s heart beats only for one man—Chris. They are engaged and have two wonderful children together. However, ever since Bruce sent Harley to the hotel, they have been living apart. Unfortunately, Chris had hurt Harley, yet despite the difficulties of distance, they talk on the phone every day.

On August 4th, Dan arrived at the hotel as a volunteer. He had been through a lot in life—people had used him, robbed him, and betrayed him, especially women. He no longer expected much from life. He just wanted to somehow get through it. He had stopped dreaming of having a family, but he still dreamed of helping others.

In a way, he managed to fulfill that dream. At the hotel, he did everything—not just running errands, but anything he was asked to do, and he didn’t take any payment for it.

At first, he didn’t pay attention to Harley’s beauty—his knees didn’t go weak. The first time he spoke to her, she treated him with arrogance. She thought he was just another guy obsessed with her.

But over time, their conversations began to grow. They became closer and closer. However, they kept it hidden so no one would find out that the owner’s daughter, engaged to Chris, was getting close to a simple errand boy.

Only Harley’s friends knew about it—Tiffany and Taylor. Both had been living in the hotel for a long time, and because Harley was very trusting, she had no idea what would later come from their side.

Dan also had a paid job elsewhere. Since Harley had no income, he began to support her financially. It wasn’t easy for him, as he didn’t earn much, but he wanted to help her.

With each passing day, they grew closer. Feelings appeared, along with plans for a future together. Harley told him about her children and about Chris, but assured him that it was over between them.

Even though Dan didn’t want love or a relationship, he felt that this was love. He felt that Harley was the one—the one he had been waiting for his whole life. That despite all the disappointments he had experienced, real happiness was finally ahead of him. The love in his heart kept growing, and because of it, he felt like the happiest man on earth.

September 14th was a special day. Harley left a note under Dan’s door, confessing that she loved him. It made him even happier. He returned the gesture by leaving his own love confession on her desk.

He wanted to tell Harley how he felt in person—to look into her eyes, hold her hand, and embrace her. But there were cameras everywhere in the hotel, and he knew he couldn’t do it. He longed for tenderness and closeness—he hadn’t held anyone for five years.

On September 15th, Dan started working in the mailroom. It wasn’t an interesting job—copying letters, delivering them, and sorting them—but he did what he was told.

That same day, another woman named Harley moved into the hotel—Harley Quinn.

Harley took advantage of the situation and decided to send a message to Andrew, who lived in another wing of the hotel. She wrote “Harley Quinn” as the sender and asked Dan to deliver the message.

He rewrote it on a new piece of parchment, but the content of the message made him uncomfortable. There were too many details that related to his great love—someone confessing love and longing to Andrew. He began to wonder what the chances were that two different Harleys could share identical memories.

Despite everything, he tried to deliver the message, but failed.

Over the next few days, Harley kept asking whether Andrew had received the message, while Dan was disturbed by the thought that his Harley, just one day after confessing love to him, was confessing it to another man. The stress kept him from sleeping and eating.

Finally, he asked his beloved Harley if the message was from her. She firmly denied it. She swore on everything that it wasn’t her message. She said that if she were to confess love to someone, she wouldn’t do it through Dan, but through someone else—and that the real sender was Harley Quinn.

He believed her, because he loved her. And so he was able to eat and sleep again.

At the end of September, Taylor left the hotel and went to another city. Around the same time, Dan found a dating advertisement posted by Harley. It felt like a stab to the heart.

He asked her why such an ad appeared if they were together. She explained that she knew nothing about it, that she hadn’t posted anything, and that Taylor’s sister had done it without her knowledge to destroy their relationship.

Shortly after, Dan received a message from Taylor. In it, she spoke badly about Harley and also wrote that Harley talks on the phone every day—even though it’s a bad person.

Dan couldn’t believe it. He told Harley about Taylor’s message and what it said. Harley defended herself, saying it was all done out of jealousy to separate them, and that she wasn’t talking to Chris anymore because they were no longer together.

Dan believed Harley’s words, yet deep inside he felt that something wasn’t right. Maybe there was some truth in that message after all…

Tiffany had left the hotel and went on a journey. However, Harley still considered her a friend, so she asked Dan to pass messages between them. He did so, but after a few days Harley asked him not to accept any more messages from Tiffany and to forget about her… but it was already too late.

Dan received a devastating message from Tiffany. Once again, there were negative words about Harley, and once again it was said that she was still talking to Chris—and that Tiffany’s mother was arranging and paying for their calls.

The situation became difficult again, and Dan told Harley about the message…

Dan’s world collapsed.

He knew that on September 14th they had confessed love to each other, and the very next day she had confessed it to Andrew.

Dan was devastated. He tried to numb everything—the thoughts, the pain—because all he wanted now was for it to stop.

He couldn’t understand how someone could do something like this to another person.

He felt that his dream of a future with Harley, of love for life, had just disappeared.

But before he decided to disappear, he wanted to hear words from Harley.

She apologized. She asked for a second chance. And once again—he believed her.

Time passed. Things got worse. Then better. Then worse again.

Until the truth slowly began to reveal itself.

Message after message. Person after person.

And finally—reality.

It was never over.

Dan, already mentally and physically exhausted, had had enough of the pain.

He did what he had wanted to do in September. What he had thought about for years.

If it had worked the first time, he would have avoided so much suffering.

He didn’t live to see Easter.

And for some people, it would never be the same again.