“We should go home,” I said, unable to look at him.
“Mercedes.” He took another step closer to me. I pulled away. “Please, talk to me.”
“I just want to go home, okay? Everything is fine.”
I felt like I’d just shot him between the eyes. I couldn’t drag out the moment and lead him on, but he knew. He knew exactly what I was thinking. It was obvious in the way he kept trying to look at me out of the corner of his eyes. He hunched his shoulders and leaned against the car when we walked up. “Mercedes, please...”
I was torturing him. I’d never hated myself more, but I had to do what I had to do. I walked around to the passenger side door.
He toughened up when we got in the car. The tension between us was electric, but he didn’t say anything. I expected a big fight. Instead, his face calmed, and he stopped looking at me out of the corner of his eyes. He would adjust to life without me. He’d find some other whore to move onto, and I’d build a career for myself.
All the way home, from the second we left the event hall, the air around us became thicker and thicker. A wall of budding resentment and bitterness sprouted up between us. He could cling to that. It would make it easier for him to forget about me.
When he stopped the car in front of my house, he leaned over and grabbed me by the shoulders to face him. “Talk to me, Mercedes.”
“I have to go, Jake.” I opened the door and wrenched away. I climbed into my bedroom window using a patio chair from the backyard and fell face first on the bed.
I wrapped the comforter around my head and stayed there.
Chapter 31
Jake
The night had started amazingly. Mercedes and I had finally crossed the gap between us, and we were together the way we were supposed to be. We would’ve spent the night together, cuddling and making love. Then we’d wake up next to each other, and I’d make breakfast. That was the way it should have been, and it would’ve had it not been for Satan herself.
Becky was the worst kind of human being possible. She didn’t care about anyone other than herself. She thought she did, but it always came down to how she felt, and whether or not she got the things she wanted.
It all came down to her rich daddy complex. She was from an upper middle-class family. They were the kind of people that thought they were above everyone else, just because they had six figures in their checking accounts.
Her father couldn’t move past his blind ambition. He worked constantly, and when he was off, he was with his mistress. It bothered her a lot. I remember when she told me about it, how she cried and shook. It was hard to hear, but she used that story to get me to let her in.
I gave her nice dresses, and I helped her with her rent when she was in trouble. I even gave her an allowance, so she could feel comfortable, but it was never enough for her. She always wanted more: more money, more jewelry, more clothes. By the time our relationship ended, she had the fall, winter, and summer collections for all major fashion lines. She was mad because she couldn’t keep that up.
In a sense, she was a gold digger. A glorified prostitute. She knew the tricks of her harlot trade. She researched all the right surgeries. She had a schedule set up. Every two years, she had a tit tune-up. Every month, it was Botox injections. And every few weeks, they pumped her full of collagen.
That was how she made her living. Every cup size she went up tripled her budget. Every shot she got made her look five years younger. The men loved it, and they paid a very high price to be with her. It didn’t take her long to figure out that she didn’t need to whore herself out. She could just pick one prick and bleed him dry.
The sad part was that she used men, not because she wanted to use them, but because some sick part of her had gone sour a long time ago. She preyed on rich men because they could shower her with all the pretty things that her father never bought her. They’d fill the gaping hole between her legs and make her feel like she had a heart.
Once they’d proven themselves capable of supporting her fashion addiction, she fell for them. It wasn’t a shallow, “Oh, I love you sweetie,” type of love, or a deep, intimate connection. It was a wild, drunken, glass-breaking brawl.
It turned into an intense battle between the complacent male and a neurotic beauty queen. She’d fight and scream and push her men away. Then she’d lose it when they cheated on her or broke up with her, but it was her fault. I was lucky enough to cut things short before I had to retreat to somebody else.
I did it the right way, too. I brought her to a romantic dinner, and I got her a new dress and a diamond necklace. That was basically a prerequisite to get her out of her townhome at that point. She spent the entire time going over the thing, inspecting it, and asking about the carats. Then she moved onto the new spring collection, and how much she’d love it for her birthday.
I nodded along and listened to everything until she started asking why I was so distant. She wanted to know why I didn’t call her and spend all night on the phone with her, and why she hadn’t seen me all week. I wasn’t even trying to avoid her.
Nothing I said was enough. I’d concede every single step of the way, and it wasn’t just empty promises. She had me second guessing myself. When she moved on to my faults and how I should dress differently, I snapped and told her that I never wanted to see her again. She flew across the table with her nails outstretched like claws. I felt terrible. She was sobbing and begging me when I walked away, and she didn’t stop.
She harassed the gate guards in front of my house. She looked up all the board members at my company and called to harass them about me. She even tried to strangle my receptionist in the parking lot. As far as she was concerned, I was the one, and she was entitled to me, just like she was entitled to everything else.
People that use other people aren’t necessarily crazy. Often, they’re saner than most. They’d have to be to move through the world without getting found out. Becky was sloppy. She mixed her business and her personal life in the worst kind of way. She didn’t know the difference. She was delusional.
Anyone that buys into their own lies is doing so because they’re mentally ill. She didn’t really care about me, just what she saw in me. So, she lied to herself to reinforce our abusive relationship, just like any good codependent. That was Becky. She was out of her mind.
I never once cheated on her. I did without if I could because I thought she was worth the trouble. I was fair with her. I never cheated on her like her other boyfriends, and I never once laid a hand on her. She was just resentful because I wouldn’t put up with her crap. Now, Mercedes was gone, and I laid in bed, hiding underneath the covers while I stared at my phone.
I had pictures of her in her dress, the white and red masterpiece. Her hair, done up by a celebrity stylist, framed her amazing face. She was the most beautiful person I’d ever met in my entire life, inside and out. Her looks had nothing to do with it. It was her personality. She dedicated herself to her family, so much so that she was willing to sell herself to help them pay their bills.