We will be through.
And so will you.
— If Oh You Knew
Foke was satisfied with how I handled the situation in L.A.
Actually, what he said was, "Gangsta," to which I replied, "I make a better friend than enemy."
I was so proud of my badass line that I raised my hands in triumph, and dropped my phone in the fucking toilet. So that went well.
I needed a new phone anyway.
And speaking of friends, when I got back to Indiana, I dropped off my stuff at the house, plugged in my new phone so it could charge, and then, I headed straight to Claire's apartment.
We needed to have a little chat. Face to face.
Why wasn't she taking my calls? And how was she getting by, without me? She sounded so happy the last time we talked, but that was just for show. She could be so fake, y'know?
I was angry at myself for letting her go.
I knew our deal was only for one year, but I could have convinced her to stay. And I should have. I needed her, but not as much as she needed me. How was she going to take care of herself without me? I only gave her a hundred grand because I knew she'd burn through it and come crawling back.
Breaking into her apartment was easy. I wasn't even good at picking locks and I managed it with ease.
Okay, fine. I paid Yaz to do it. Feel better knowing the truth? Come on.
I searched the place. It was filled with everything I bought her. The clothes. The shoes. The books she only pretended to read. Even the glasses we bought to make her look smart. It was all just an act to make the marks think she was something she wasn't. To make them think she mattered.
Back when we were on the beach in Chicago, she said, "Nothing can bring you peace but yourself," and I cursed the thought, but I was impressed with her for having thought it, until she said it was from a book. Ralph Walker Emersteen, or something. Of course she got it from a book. She never had an original thought in her entire life.
Had she found peace in her new life? Peace, within herself?
The only thing I found within myself was anger. Just thinking about her made me furious.
I found her diary. I couldn't read it. Except for the parts I did. There was a poem she wrote, right after she got that writer guy in the hot tub. She named it "If Oh You Knew." It said:
I'm the girl you want in bed
I'm diversion you would dread
If oh you knew
By when you do
We will be through
And so will you
Through the lust within the loins
I enable gotten coins
My siren song
A ping to pong
The game is long
I will be gone
Look at that. She fucked up the rhyme. Do you see it? That bit at the end. Girl can't even rhyme.
I grabbed a pen to fix her poem.
My ending said:
There is no ping!
There is no pong!
'Cause I decide
what's right and wrong!!!
That rhymes.
The last line though. Hers, not mine. "I will be gone."
Ouch.
What a bitch!
Was it true though?
Was she gone?
Not 'til I said so.
That was for me to decide, because the game was long. She said so.
The last time we talked, she said, "Life is the real long game. So, you have to ask yourself, 'What am I doing this for? What do I really want?'"
I wanted freedom, and freedom isn't cheap.
Freedom was the real long game.
Freedom from want.
Freedom from judgment.
Freedom from those who think they've set themselves free of me.
I wanted the freedom to have it all and not feel guilty.
Don't you fucking judge me. You don't know. You couldn't possibly understand. You've never been there.
But Claire has. Yet she judged ME?
I wondered how judgmental she'd be once she burned through the money I gave her. After living with me, on easy street, a hundred grand couldn't possibly be enough.
And, really, how much is enough? Claire said, "Enough is when your heart is full."
That girl's heart was full of shit.
And I would know, because mine was made of shit.
"I will be gone," she said.
Well, that was it.
That was what I came to see.
She thought she didn't need me anymore. She? Didn't need ME?
I needed to leave.
I couldn't stand the sight of what she'd become.
She'd become ordinary.
I wanted more.
She'd become less.
I found her lipstick in a drawer, next to the diary. I put it on. I went into her bathroom and kissed the mirror, up high, right in the middle of the thing. I had to climb onto the sink to do it.
I needed to make sure she knew I'd been there. To make sure she knew I would always be there.
"I will be gone," the poem says?
Never.
Fuck you, Claire.
I made you. I'd always be there.
"Get your fucking words out of my head! Claire, I wish you were dead!!!"
She never wanted this?!?
Any of this?
Could've fooled me.
"THAT'S BUTTERSCOTCH, BITCH."
I left twenty bucks on the counter, just like any of the men who'd come before.
Before me.
Before I freed her from all of that.
"I will be gone," she said?
I thought, "I will be gone too, but only because I have somewhere else I need to be." And the hour was getting late.
I slammed the door on my way out.