Her therapist’s words ring in my head:Don’t mistake baseline behavior for extraordinary.
But Margaux is so starved for partnership that she clings to these scraps as if they’re a feast.
I know how this story ends.
Timmy will unravel again.
He’ll stop trying.
He’ll find a way to hurt her, to make her feel small and dependent.
And Margaux—with all her strength and resilience—will try to fix it.
She’ll keep trying until she has nothing left to give.
I’m angry at Timmy, but I’m angrier at myself.
For watching this happen.
For not being able to stop it.
For wanting so badly to step in, to be the one who shows her what love is supposed to feel like.
She deserves so much better than this.
I just hope she realizes it before it’s too late.
CHAPTER 113
THE TRUTH ABOUT TIMMY
MARGAUX
When I’m out with Timmy, I feel like I’m walking a tightrope.
With my ex, the challenge was keeping him from creeping people out. He was the silent type, lurking in the background unless his friends were around to draw him out of his introverted shell.
Timmy, on the other hand, willnevershut the fuck up.
He dominates every conversation, swallowing the room with his words. It’s not that he’s trying to connect with people—far from it. If he asks a question, it’s only to set the stage for one of his stories. The exchange is transactional—a brief response from the other person, and then Timmy launches into a tangent, often irrelevant but always lengthy.
Some people seem entertained, laughing at his jokes or marveling at the bizarre twists in his tales. He has a knack for painting vivid, if chaotic, pictures with his words. But even those who enjoy his stories at first grow weary as he stumbles over sentences, repeats himself, or speaks so rapidly he can’t keep up with his own thoughts.
My friend who visited once whispered to me, “Is he on gear? He’s talking so fast.” She literally thought he was on heroin.
I laughed it off at the time, but inside, I cringed.
He misses—or ignores—social cues. The shifting of weight in a chair, the darting glances toward the clock, the forced chuckles meant to wrap up the interaction. He doesn’t seem to notice, or maybe he just doesn’t care.
It’s strange, because he’s so attuned to human behavior in other contexts. When it comes to telling stories to strangers or groups, that attunement disappears.
I didn’t notice the incoherence of his writing until April, when he bombarded me with emails—rambling, repetitive, and riddled with errors. I forwarded one to my friend Stacey for advice. “Is English his second language?” she’d asked. She wasn’t being rude—it was a genuine question.
How had I missed this until a few months ago? How have I, a writer, ignored that my fiancé can’t string together a coherent sentence? Have I been so blinded by his charm—or maybe by my own desperation to believe in us—that I’ve tolerated this glaring red flag?
It’s not just his writing. Timmy isalwaystalking, always filling the space, leaving me no room to reflect, to think. Normally, I use my shows and podcasts to let my mind wander, to process and identify patterns. Walking used to help, too, but it’s not safe to walk here, and Timmy never comes with me anyway.
Without that mental downtime, I’ve been blindsided by Timmy’s flaws. Now, they’re glaring. His façade is cracking, revealing someone lacking basic skills or sophistication. Theman I thought was my equal now feels like an unqualified stranger.