On a new page, I write a simpler plan:PAY DICKHEAD BACK.
Believe me, I know I can’t until I’m seventy.
He might think he can pay me off by gifting me the store, which was never part of the agreement, and sending me the rest of the money for a job I never finished, but that’s not how this works.
That’s not how I let him live rent free in my head forever.
So maybe I’ll take the original wad he paid me because Ididpretend to be his fake fiancée for a bit. Fine, fair compensation.
That’s all I agreed to do.
Also, the practical voice inside me reminds me I could really use the money.
There’s not much of a cushion around here when the bookstore is barely up and running, certainly not with a lasting vision yet.
I’m not Ethan.
Even without Blackthorn Holdings, he’s still a rich man.
He has enough funds to hit reset on his life a hundred times over, and seeing how he’s disappeared from Portland, I guess he’s punched that button a lot.
No big goodbye.
Even Margot hasn’t heard from him. She called me the other day to ask if he’d gotten in touch because he hasn’t been texting her back.
But no.
Good thing, too, because if he texted right now, I’d drop my phone in a vat of acid just so I don’t have to see his texts anymore.
Crazy, but so what? I’m entitled to be a little unhinged and live my best Bateman murder fantasies.
I hopehefalls in a vat of acid.
Ideally, after I’ve paid him back for the bookstore and the second installment, which sits in my bank account, teasing me to spend it.
I feel nauseous.
Because I’m the petty bitch I am, I hunch closer to the paper and draw Ethan, drowning in the nice big acid pool. Then I doodle him getting crushed by the big pile of money I send back.
Maybe I should mail it to him in one-dollar daily increments starting today?
Is that too cruel?
Ha, he’ll beg for the acid after a few weeks of that.
With a bitter giggle, I hope he feels guilty.
I hope he feels every sting of guilt and shame for what he did.
But I also hope he’s okay, dammit, wherever he is.
I hope he hasn’t let his demons win.
I hope they aren’t making him drink himself to death.
Mostly, I hope I never have to think about him again.
My chest caves in every time he strays into my thoughts, the same way he only struts into my life to pummel the happiness out of it.
