Me:
Stupid asshat. He could be so awesome and here we are.
I feel distanced from myself, watching myself see his potential even after what he just did.
I text another friend, Sven, who’s like a brother to me. That I made the worst choice. That the shithead punched me in the face and threatened to kill me. Ironic welcome to beach life. That I need to make better choices, clearly.
It’s like I’m watching my life from the ceiling, that I’m disembodied, just observing myself like a third party.
I leave the apartment, needing air, needing anything but these four walls. I wander down to the corner store, dazed, not sure where else to go, and buy a bottle of whiskey and a hard seltzer. The cashier doesn’t bat an eye at my injuries as I pay—just another lost soul buying booze to survive the night.
One of the cop cars is still in the driveway, and the officers watch me return with my items. I wonder if they’re observing me, judging my purchases. But at the same time, I don’t really care. I just need to numb myself further.
Back at the apartment, I sit on the disheveled mattress, the weight of everything pressing down on me. I sip the whiskey, hoping to drown out the thoughts swirling in my mind. But the silence is deafening, and the echoes of Timmy’s rage linger in every corner of the room.
Tears well up, but I swallow them down. I don’t have the luxury of falling apart—not now. There’s no one to call, no one to lean on. Just me, and the bottle, and the empty bed where I once felt safe in Timmy’s arms.
Sabre, who I’d usually rely on for support, still isn’t with me.
I stare at the ceiling, listening to the faint hum of the city beyond the windows. How did it come to this?
And as the whiskey warms my veins, I realize I don’t have an answer. I only know that I survived the night. But tomorrow is a new day, and I have no idea what it holds—or if I’ll ever feel safe again.
59
THERE'S A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING BUT THIS IS NOT ONE
The Next Day
He’s in jail.Jail. It feels surreal, like I’ve been dropped into someone else’s life. I’ve never had a partner in jail before. I don’t think I’ve known anyone who’s been in jail, actually. And because Timmy has been glued to my side since I arrived in Sunset Cay—my only real connection here—his absence is deafening. It’s as if the air has been sucked out of the apartment, leaving behind only a hollow silence.
The charges are domestic violence and ‘terroristic threats’, a fancy legal term for ‘he told me he was going to kill me’.
I sit on the mattress, surrounded by the wreckage of what was supposed to be my fresh start, trying to piece together how things escalated to this point. How we went from sharing laughs, dreams, and late-night movies to him wielding a hammer and smashing everything in sight, threatening to slit my throat.
The top of the toilet tank is shattered, porcelain shards scattered across the bathroom floor like jagged teeth. I step carefully over them, the absurdity of it all sinking in. Who smashes a toilet? What message was he sending, and to whom?
Out on the balcony, I find the remains of the potted plant—theone he insisted was special, sacred, even—the gift from Darren’s now-deceased mom, something he cherished. And yet, here it lies in pieces, dirt spilled across the tiles, the pot obliterated by the same hammer he held over my head, the one he promised to use to end my life.
I notice the pink-handled hammer resting on the floor, and the sight of it makes me shiver. It looks so innocent—something you’d pick up at a craft store, not intended for use as a murder weapon.
But now it’s tainted, just like everything else in this place.
It holds the weight of everything that happened last night, a symbol of what he could have done. What he almost did.
The second deer antler—the one he didn’t use as a weapon—lies on the floor, discarded. The sight of it turns my stomach, and I wrap it in a plastic trash bag with trembling hands. Carrying it down the hallway to the trash chute, I fight the urge to vomit. It feels radioactive, like it’s still buzzing with the malice he injected into it.
When I return, I glance around the wreckage and wonder how this became my life. I moved to this Cay for peace, for creativity, to write books and live quietly. Not to be threatened, attacked, and left in the ruins of a brand-new apartment.
The police took the other antler, and apparently his bone necklace, too.
“We thought it was a human spine at first,” one officer said when taking my statement, shaking his head.A human spine, just like Paulo joked about when I shared Timmy’s Tinder profile. I shiver again. What kind of person collects such things? It sounds like something ripped from a horror movie, the same kind Timmy loves.
And now he’s in jail. Charged. Arrested.Gone. But not for long, apparently. The officers were clear about that—he’ll likely be released in a few days. I try to wrap my head around what that means. What happens when he gets out? Will he come back, angrier than before? Will I have to move again? Will I need to watch my back every time I leave the building?
The cops warned me when they came back this morning to deliver some more paperwork, including a stay-away notice thatprevents him from coming back here. “He’s banned from this building,” one of the officers explained. “If he comes back, even through the service elevator, we’ll know. There are cameras everywhere. He can’t come within 100 yards of the building or contact you for 72 hours after his release. Not by phone, not by email—nothing.”
I nod, clutching the papers. “Okay,” I whisper.