Chapter 3
Jake left me.
As the garage door rumbled shut, I received a
text.
“I’ll be out of town for a while. Pack your
things.”
“I’ll have someone change the locks in two
weeks.”
I didn’t reply.
Silently, I erased all traces of myself from the
villa I’d lived in for five years.
After a long while, my phone lit up.
<
Jake had probably met up with the terrified
Lily.
He was wrapping up our ten–year relationship
neatly.
“Call me if you need anything.”
“We can still be friends, even if I can’t give
you a title.”
I loved Jake for ten years.
In return, I got a casual “friend.”
The downpour lasted for two days.
The city was soaked, damp to the bone.
!.couldn’t sleep. I kept getting up in the
middle of the night, flicking my lighter.
The year I met Jake, he was just a small–time
hoodlum who couldn’t pay his rent and lived
in a basement apartment.
In the humid air, the lighter was the only
source of light.
“Click,” “click,” igniting and extinguishing.
く
Jake, with his buzz cut, stared at me in my
school uniform.
“Think it through, Sarah.”
“A guy like me, I’m a loser.”
“I can’t give you the future you want.”
I was so naive back then.
I took off my rain–soaked Converse.
I tucked my freezing feet into his lap.
Through his thin tank top, Jake’s body heat
was like a torch, slowly igniting me.
Even though there was only the flicker of a
lighter, I stubbornly nodded.
“Jake, I don’t want a future.”
“I just want you.”
Jake and I held guns together, wielded knives
together.
In nights filled with the smell of bandages and
antiseptic, we made love until we passed out,
then woke up and did it again.
Jake said that the first thing he would do
く
when he went clean was marry me.
Now, he’s going clean.
And the first thing he does is cut me loose.
I’m twenty–eight, not a kid anymore. I can’t
keep running wild.
My family has a good guy waiting for me, just
waiting for me to give him a chance.
