He meets my gaze, and his next words chill me to the bone. “Well, the main thing is the chainsaw is gone now. So I won’t be tempted to use it on you. You should be pleased.”
For the next few days, the emotional roller coaster reaches new lows. His intermittent compliments—rare and almost begrudging—are drowned out by a torrent of accusations and insults.
“I want you to help me be a better person. I don’t want to drag you down,” he says one moment, his tone earnest, almost vulnerable.
I’ve heard that one before.
Then, not ten minutes later:
“You are abusive and mean.”
Projection, much? Although Iambecoming mean.
“You drive around blackout drunk all the time.”
Excuse me? No, I do not. Again, projection.
“Your friends aren’t real friends.”
Says the man who can’t name a single close friend who will willingly talk to him anymore. Except for the one skank, Thotimus Prime.
He’s such a Projecty McProjectorson.
“Noneof your exes like you.Allof mine love me.”
I only know a couple of his exes, and based on those the lie detector reveals… this is a lie.
“You’re a mean and nasty person.”
“You’re nothing like the characters in your books.”
Ouch. That one hurts the most. Writing is the one thing I have left that feels like mine, and he knows it.
“No wonder your family wants nothing to do with you.”
Double ouch.
I can’t hold back anymore. “That’s not eventrue!My family is tiny. And the only reason my half-sister stopped talking to me is because ofyou.Because I stayed withyou. She doesn’t want the next time she sees me to be at my funeral becauseyouacted crazy and killed me!”
“Whatever,” he scoffs. “There’s a reason none of them are in the picture anymore.”
His words drip with cruelty, each one calculated to hit the deepest part of my insecurities.
I’m fed up.
My voice is steady, but it feels like I’m holding my insides together with duct tape. “Your words can no longer hurt me, Timmy. You can say all the mean things you want, based on the things I’ve shared with you in confidence—as my life partner, as my supposed best friend—but youcannothurt me. You’ve already said it all before, and—believe me—I’ve already told myself worse.”
“Whatever,” he mutters, but his eyes glint with malice. His voice takes on a mockingly casual tone. “That reminds me—Ineed to call my parents later. Check in on my mom and dad. You know, my parents that love me and who would do anything for me.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
His words echo in the space between us, and something inside me breaks.
I once thought I saw glimpses of the man he could be, the man he might have been before life broke him in ways I’ll never fully understand.
But now, I’m not even sure those glimpses were real.
And is that glimpse I thought I saw of him originally eventhatflattering in retrospect?