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“You’re literally a journalist, Iris. Every detail of a crime like this is gold to you. You couldn’t make my life story into your cash crop, so now you can take a swing at an actual murder that I commit? Fuck no.”
I feel my face turn white. Why is he accusing me of trying to gain details for an article? I thought he trusted me more than that!
“Matteo, you’re lying in bed with me right now. We’re both naked. I thought you trusted me at least on a fundamental level to not steal the details of your next crime!” I say with righteous indignation. How fucking dare he accuse me of such a thing!
He scoffs. “Listen, I know how it can be when you have nothing else going on in your life and you need to use someone else’s misfortune to get rich. Believe me. It’s the way of the world. But there’s no way you’re not a little pissed about my article being worthless.”
My cheeks burn with anger. I want to scream at him to get out. Having sex with him was a mistake both times, and I’ll regret this choice for the rest of my life.
“Matteo, I didn’t run your article because I didn’t have enough information to make a good case for you! Maybe you’re just not the misunderstood good guy that you think you are. You’re just as selfish, entitled, and cocky as the rest of them. And you’re still a criminal!” I say, raising my voice.
Rolling his eyes, he gets out of my bed and starts putting his pants back on. “Alright, well I’ll certainly have a great time jerking off to this memory when I’m doing twenty-five to life. Fuck this.”
He doesn’t even put his shirt on all the way before he leaves my apartment. He slams the door behind him, knocking one of my picture frames onto the floor and shattering it.
I rush out to see what’s broken, and there I find the photo of my childhood dog that died two years ago.
Matteo is an asshole. He’s irredeemable, selfish, and arrogant. There’s not a damn thing about him that I want to expose a baby to, and I’ll be goddamned if I allow him to see the baby just because he has money. Money won’t buy my dignity, not ever again.
I wonder to myself where he’s going right now, probably to a strip club where all the dancers know him and fawn over him. He could never pretend he didn’t like that attention.
Even though I’m feeling strong for standing up for myself, I begin to cry on the floor as I pick up the pieces of the frame. I don’t want to blame him – the walls are paper-thin and very unstable in this apartment complex. Even still, the fact that he’s so careless about throwing his weight around when he’s angry puts a bad feeling in my chest.
All I ever wanted in life was to be content. I could have spent these last few months dating someone who actually likes me, someone who wants to have a family with me and build a life together. Instead, I chose to let my hormones dictate my actions, and I’ve fucked myself into a lifetime of single parenthood.
I don’t even clean up the glass right away. I pick up the photo, resting it carefully on the countertop to my right.
There’s nothing left to say. I’ve fucked up royally, and now it’s time for me to endure the consequences of my actions on my own.
30
Matteo
When I leave the apartment, I hear something fall off the wall in Iris’s kitchen. It shatters, and I feel a momentary sense of guilt.
But what else was I supposed to do?
She was being way too pushy with her questions. I know she thinks we have a strong rapport, and we certainly used to. But after the fight we had, a lot of that trust was lost. She can’t ask questions like a reporter when she already tried to turn me into her golden calf. Whether she has true feelings for me or she’s just infatuated, she knows I’m a good story for her portfolio.
I thought things would have gone better with Iris after we fucked again, but there’s something I noticed about her that’s got me stressed and upset with her.
Iris is pregnant, and she’s hiding it from me.
The whole time we were fucking, she kept trying to cover her belly. At first, I thought she was just self-conscious, but when I looked closer, I realized that the bump she was concealing was too pronounced to just be weight gain. A little weight gain would have been fine. I would think that she would know me well enough to be comfortable showing me her body no matter what. But I’ve seen plenty of girls like her get knocked up before, and that little bump on the lower belly is a telltale sign no matter how hard they try to cover it up.
Is the baby mine? It’s unlikely. We only had sex one time, and I imagine that she went on a bender and fucked a bunch of guys to get her self-esteem back up. She might want to let one of them know.
But as far as she and I go, we’re done.
If she’s going to give herself up like that to just anyone, then I can’t trust her. The fact that she was trying to cover it up tells me that she already knows it’s not mine. She was trying to get sex and attention out of me with someone else’s baby in her. The thought disgusts me.
The thing is that I was really starting to develop feelings for her. I know that’s what she wanted – to claim me as her own, to go everywhere with me and be shown off to all of the women she thought she was competing with.
I genuinely enjoyed the connection we had while it lasted, but she doesn’t seem to take relationships seriously. I guess I should have expected that. She’s still young, and she doesn’t feel the need to consider the consequences of her actions. I’m sure that right now, she feels like she’s the main character in the movie of her life. She probably believes that everything is going to work out for her in the end because she’s desirable.
Whatever happens, it’s not like I’m going to find out anyway.
I could have given her a good life. She doesn’t seem like the type to be materialistic or selfish, so she would have been perfectly content with anything I gave her. I could have made her happier than anyone in the city. She would have been the object of jealousy for so many women who have been obsessing over me since I took over the mafia. She doesn’t realize what she’s lost.
