Zach dropped him off at Brady’s and they arranged to meet up to work at Zach’s place next week. He finally had his car back. His old Chevy Malibu he got passed down from his mom, the chick filet wrappers from last week still littered the floors and the car had a different scent to the one he was used to. The scent of a large sweaty man. Todd was napping on the couch when he entered his apartment. His wound still looked fresh, with staples and thread sewn in by Dr. Remington. He looked at the pills the Doctor had given prescribed Todd. Trazadone. He was to dope Todd up until he healed. That way he wouldn’t lick his wounds. He removed the cone from Todd’s head and repositioned him so that the wound was out of sight then a took a photo and sent it to Cassie. “Had too much fun at the park. Such a sleepy Boy with 2 heart emojis.” He hadn’t yet told Cassie about Todd’s ordeal. Whenever she’d facetime him, he would strategically be out of the apartment so she couldn’t see Todd. He was afraid of how she would react and how worthless it made him seem. The doctor said the wound should heal fast and hopefully his hair would cover it by the time Cassie got back. And if she noticed he would have to make up some lie at the last second. Something he had a lot of experience with.
He thought about some other times he had disappointed Cassie during their 14 months of dating. “Why are you always so complacent”? She’d always say or ‘You never tell me anything anymore. It’s like I hardly know you”. That last sentiment may have been true. Although not intentionally secretive he always held back and had a difficult time revealing himself to others.
He opened his phone and glanced at his calendar. He had to visit his brother Peter in a couple of days. Peter still lived in their home town an hour south. They had planned to visit their mom in (blank). Peter was 28 only a year younger than him but his life was not even comparable. When he was 23 Peter got a PHD and had worked remotely for a large company ever since. When he was 23 he had just finished his 5th year of undergrad getting a degree in psychology which he did nothing with. The next several years he spent living on friends’ couches while working odd jobs from interning at an autistic research center to working at an experimental drug research corporation. Some of the work was interesting to him but most of it was signing forms and following strict protocols.
While working he started writing a screenplay with a friend but nothing came out of it. Eventually he ended up in Peter’s basement while he attended a coding bootcamp with an acquaintance of his from high school. Peter ended up living in their childhood home. Well, he lived on the land the house was built on, demolishing it to construct his dream house with his wife Mia and their 5-year-old daughter Anna. Mia and him got off on the wrong foot and were never able to form an amiable relationship. They were just too different although more similar than he’d like to admit. Mia would always complain about his messiness and lack of a normal career and he’d overhear her asking Peter when he was going to evict him.
He had however been really close to Ana which had been his one saving grace. But the accident with Ana changed everything and that was the last straw. Peter and him had a talk and Peter kindly told him that it was time to leave. He was completely broke at the time, but Peter had lent him 5k to get him started off on the right foot. Nowhere to go, he found himself at Georgie’s, a friend from college who owned a house in his hometown. He spent most of his time watching Netflix with Georgie’s friends, while lazily applying for jobs and going on odd errands with his friend. After several months of this he had a falling out with Georgie and left, but was able to find a room at a house Cassie owned, a stranger to him at the time, and they soon began dating. He and Cassie had been pretty close at first and she was able to motivate him to seriously search for jobs and he was able to help her to gain confidence and realize people weren’t always judging her. While dating Cassie he ended up finding his current job which paid him considerably more than anything he’d had previously, yet nothing to write home about. He still had nothing in his savings account. Student loans and investing mishaps with Georgie were mostly to be blamed for this. Still, his trajectory was headed up and he estimated that he’d have a reasonable amount of savings in a couple years. He even visited Peter and his mom more often and was able to repair his relationship with his sister-in-law.
Seemingly his life was decent, yet recently it had slowly started to unwind. He wasn’t quite sure why. Cassie would say he was depressed, but it seemed like something else that he couldn’t point a finger on. Some feeling of incompleteness like a missed step in an elaborate baking recipe. Eventually their relationship began to dwindle and they stopped having sex or talking about anything real. The last couple of months he lived there he had been sleeping on the couch while she began to date new people. Now, here he was at his new apartment. The only thing he had going for him was his job, but even that he was bored with a lot of the time. Until he met Jasmine his life was colorless, each day indistinguishable from the last.
He smiled as he texted her. Last night they had talked on the phone for 30 minutes. She was worried about Todd and told him that Johnny offered to pay him back for everything, which he needed as he’d opened up a new credit card to be able to afford the bill since he was paying out of pocket to avoid suspicion from Cassie. They also talked about the photos he was obsessed with and how he recognized the house across the street from Johnny. Later that night they had plans to get dinner and to scope the place out. Everything he did with her seemed exciting and adventurous and when he was alone in his apartment with the injured Todd he was reminded of his reality. Todd’s wound was starting to stink and a rancid stench filled the apartment. He thought about where Todd would sleep at Peter’s and how he’d explain the injury and drugs to him and Mia. But that could wait for another day.
