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The laptop was already open on the desk. And there were eleven new messages.
For once, Trey might as well tell the truth. “No, kid. None of it was true. You’re pathetic. Weak. I feel sorry for you, more than anything else.” He said the words casually, as though they were discussing the weather or how the Seahawks were faring this season. “You’re a fool. A fool for love.” Trey chuckled.
And that broke Jimmy. He began to sob harder now, the grief confirmed and kicking its way to the surface.
Trey listened as the sobbing grew in volume and agony.This is a drag, a bore. He stared longingly at the door, wishing this would be over. How long did he have to listen anyway? Just to be polite? He cut to the quick. “You’ve been played,” Trey said softly. “Get over it.”
He hung up. The computer’s glow reminded him that it was time to find someone else. Therightone. A chime alerted him he had yet another message.
But there would be time to attend to that in the morning. Time also for reading. He glanced down at his nightstand. A mystery novel,Cookie Cutterby Alfred Knox, lay there in its mass market paperback edition. It had a stark white cover with only an illustration of a heart-shaped cookie cutter which dripped blood into the crimson title. Below it, a stack of old magazines with articles about Knox, who lived only a few miles south.
Right now, though, Trey needed a little oblivion. He crossed the room and opened the door. The kid with the meth pipe still sat out there on the curb. He didn’t even bother to hide his glass pipe now.
Trey cast his most winning smile. “Wanna come inside?” He opened the door wider, stepping back and confidently waiting as the kid stood.
JIMMY STARED DOWNat the iPhone, not believing he’d been so casually hung up on, and so much worse, cruelly tossed aside. As though he was no one, never mind the fact that he’d spent about every night with Trey Goodall for the past three months. He’d been naïve and foolish to believe he was finally, finally going to have a real relationship. They’d talked of love, of living together, even of marriage one day. Jimmy had gobbled it all up, thanking his lucky stars he’d found such a handsome and charismatic guy with whom to share not only his bed and his table, but his life.
He’d been floating in a bubble, high in the sky. Bubbles have the most awful tendency to burst though.
As one does in the twenty-first century, they’d met online. The wooing was so fast it nearly took Jimmy’s breath away. He’d assumed he was too old, too fat, too bald, to warrant such adoration and attention, especially from a man who was model good-looking. The next few months were a whirlwind of dinners out at places like Canlis, Sushi Kashiba, Altura, and Le Gourmand. There were weekends in Vancouver, or Whidbey Island, or holed up at the nearby Four Seasons, ordering in room service and massages. There were gifts—so many gifts—clothes, watches, sunglasses, even a new MacBook Pro when Trey said his old Acer had died.
And many, many loans. Fifty here, a thousand there, it all added up.Fool.
Of course, Jimmy had paid for everything and had the credit card receipts to prove it. Thanks to Trey, he would be digging himself out of debt for a long time to come. He hadn’t thought anything of spoiling Trey. Why would he? He’d thought they were a forever couple. What did it matter? Now he felt like some stupid lovestruck teenager with more money than sense.
Except now, after Trey had gotten to him, he had a lot less money.
Jimmy moved to his balcony to overlook the lights of the city and the black expanse of Elliott Bay. Every light in every window mocked him, each one representing a normal life, lives free of betrayal and heartache.
He’d reached the end of his rope. He was a dupe, a mark, a loser—someone who’d never find love. He wasn’t even deserving of it.
His track record proved it, over and over. Since his college days, every guy he’d seen for more than a few dates had been a disappointment. There were cheaters, druggies, and alcoholics, drop-dead gorgeous ones who were also drop-dead boring, liars, and even one who dumped him, when Jimmy thought things were going so well, via text message.
Inside, he felt as black as the watery abyss that stretched out before him.
Was it time to end it all?
As things with Trey began to deteriorate, and if Jimmy was honest, that deterioration had started much earlier than he had consciously realized because he was in denial, forgiving Trey when he caught him in a lie, or digging deep in his pocket to pay for an evening out because Treyforgot his wallet. Jimmy blinded himself to the late-night texts Trey would receive.
The evidence had all been there, and he chose to look away. Who was it who said when someone shows you who they are, believe them?
Maybe he got what he deserved.
Jimmy stepped back and plopped down on one of the Adirondack chairs he had on the balcony, shivering in the cold wind. He felt numb, the tears all having been shed.
It would be easier, he thought, to simply give up, to stop trying. His future looked bleak. All of his tomorrows held the promise of more of the same: work, TV, tossing and turning through the night. He was getting old, and even the potential for finding love grew less plausible with each passing day.
Loneliness and despair loomed in front of him like some twisted and dirty yellow brick road, one that led to the witch’s tower instead of Emerald City.
Whynottake the easy way out? With each passing day, his options became fewer, his hope diminished.
After all, who would mourn his passing? His parents, once back in Wisconsin, were both dead, his dad in 1999 from a heart attack and his mom in 2007 from cancer. His only sibling, an evangelical Christian brother named Gus, never spoke to him anymore since he didn’tagreewith Jimmy’slifestyle.
Gus’s kids had been indoctrinated fully against him and wanted nothing to do with him. Coworkers? There were a few who would care, especially Myra Ghent, his assistant, but he knew that within a month or so life would go on in the office, and he’d be scarcely a memory.
What was the point?
Jimmy had wrestled with depression before, so this contemplation of suicide wasn’t new. He’d pondered, at life’s lowest and blackest points, how to do it. Jimmy had always been a romantic. It was exactly this quality that led to despair. Yet he never learned. Still, when he thought about taking that final step, he’d always thought of a romantic way. He used to think pills would be a good choice with soft lighting and opera playing in the background. But then he’d learned how pills often failed, and the results could be vomiting, nausea, and worse.
