30. Elias
THIRTY
Elias
I’ve been chanting different variations of “Whatever, this is for the best,” in my head ever since I saw Mia’s little Hot Girl march into the bar, dragging that soft-looking emo kid behind her.
Whatever , I thought, when Mia’s finger was in his mouth.
This is good, I thought, forcing a smile when I saw his soft-ass hand holding that spot on her hip.
Whatever , I thought, pulling whoever this girl was between my legs and reverting back to what was comfortable.
This is for the best , I thought, watching the agony and sheer devastation on a crying Mia’s face. The face I’ve known for twenty-nine years. The face I know like the back of my hand. I’ve never seen this particular emotion on it before, though. And I was the one who put it there.
Whatever , I thought, as twenty-nine years of love and friendship walked away from me. Shoulders turned in, making herself small. Broken.
It felt like being drawn and quartered.
I’m interrupted from my chanting.
“What the fuck was that?” Leo is asking me.
I meet his eyes. They’re the same blue as his sister’s. “What?”
He tilts his head. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I attempt to lie to my best friend, my other half of thirty-two years.
It’s a futile attempt. “Elias, what is going on between you and Mia?” he says dangerously.
The woman reads the impending moment and wiggles away.
“Nothing,” I tell him.
He stands, moving closer. “Why was she fucking crying and looking at you like that?”
I blow out a breath.
“Tell me,” he demands.
“I’ve…” I look at the floor. I can’t look at that same shade of blue. “I’ve been sleeping with Mia.”
There is silence. I look up. This is a new look, too. Betrayal. Rage.
“Why was she crying, Elias?” he asks, and it looks like it’s taking everything in him to not fucking lose it.
“I ended it,” I told him. “For what it’s worth, I hated lying to you.”
“By ‘ended it’, do you mean you did the typical Elias thing?”
“No—”
“Where you treat women like they’re disposable trash? Like she was just another person in your Blonde Parade or whatever she calls it? Did you do that to my fucking sister, Elias?”
“I didn’t,” I say to the floor. I did .
“Then why was she fucking crying?!” he says, shoving me off the stool.
People move away from us.
“Dude—”
“What did you do to my sister, Elias?” he growls, shoving me again. My back hits the bar.
“I—” I think he might hit me. I think he’s going to hit me. I want him to hit me.
“You fucked my sister and dropped her, didn’t you?”
“I…” I can’t lie to him anymore. The lying is over. I deserve this. “Yes,” I finally admit.
It finally comes. I get a fist in my face. Just one, hard enough to make me see stars, and it’s not like the play fighting of our youth, it’s a genuine fuck you punch, and it feels like getting hit by a truck.
The bouncer of the place we’re in drags him out of the bar. Through one good eye, I watch again, as thirty-two years of love and friendship moves away from me, hatred oozing out of him, and it feels like being drawn and quartered. A second time.
I don’t go home. I go straight to the gym because I’m a coward, and I can’t hear Mia fucking some dude in my house right now.
I look at my face in the mirror, at the beginnings of a black eye mottling half my face. Whatever .
I pull out the air mattress I keep in one of the closets. Take out a pillow and a blanket. And crammed into the sad few feet between my desk and the back wall, I sleep.
Luckily, I have back-to-back sessions today. From each of my clients, I get some variation of “damn, whose daughter/sister did you touch?” when they see my face.
My last session of the day is with Ethel Anderson. I’m tired, I’m hungry, and my face hurts. I pop some anti-inflammatory just before the buzzer to the gym rings.
“I can’t see much, but I can see color. And your face seems to be an unnatural shade of rocked in the face .”
I manage to crack a small smile. Which hurts like hell. “Are you sure that you, as PS 2’s school safety officer, should be admitting to me that you can’t see?
She waves her hand. “I’m kidding.”
I raise one good eyebrow. Are you?
She doesn’t see it, obviously. “Besides, you don’t work there anymore, anyway.”
I think about how I just left Mia to deal with the whole Courtney Thomas bullshit herself. This is why it’s for the best , I tell myself.
I let her get set up and put her things away. She hobbles back to the gym floor, and we start with our stretching routine.
“You wanna talk about it?” she asks, during a calf stretch.
“Not really.”
She hums. “Could it be anything to do with your girlfriend leaving the building all forlorn-like the last few days?”
I keep my face a mask. “No.”
“I didn’t take her as the type to throw a mean right hook,” she says, ignoring me.
I have her switch legs. “She isn’t my girlfriend.”
“I’m old as hell, but I don’t think even in today’s world that you go anywhere arm in arm with anyone but your partner?—”
“Ethel—”
“Every single day?—”
“Ethel—”
“Looking at each other like you’re each other’s whole world?—”
I sigh, stepping back.
“Going home to your shared living space.”
I run my hands through my hair.
She eyes me. Or at least, turns her face in my direction. “Did I see an air mattress in your office over there?”
“I was gonna go home tonight,” I mutter. “I just couldn’t go home yesterday.”
She gestures at my face with her chin. “You deserve that?”
“Definitely.”
“Hmm.” She moves back into her wall stretch. “You’re a good kid, Elias.”
I’m not.
“If you know you deserved that black eye, you should probably find a way to fix it.”
If I were a good kid, then probably.
I have my key in the door to our apartment when I hear Mia’s voice muffled inside. She’s talking to someone. A deep voice, a guy’s voice, responds.
I turn around and go back to my gym.
I go back in the morning, when I know she’ll be at work.
The apartment looks like it’s been picked up. Less shit strewn around.
I walk down the hall into my room, ignoring the couch, ignoring the TV. Something looks different in my room since the last time I was there. There are some piles of clothes on the ground that look a little different. I toe through them, trying to remember the last time I did laundry, trying to figure out why the piles look strange. Smaller, maybe.
Mia’s clothes are missing from them.
I walk over to my dresser, pulling out the top drawer. It’s just my shirts.
I wander into the living room, into the hall closet, where we keep our big duffel bags and suitcases.
Mia’s duffel is gone.
Her toothbrush is gone from the bathroom.
Whatever. It’s for the best. Good for her, that Mia got what she wanted and she’s a man-eater who’s already slayed. With someone who isn’t a giant piece of shit that no one takes seriously.
It’s on the fourth day that Mia doesn’t come back home that I start to hear her voice in my head.
We’ve grossly miscalculated this.