Page 91 of Play Dirty

But she consumed me. She ate me up from the inside out.

Because I knew she was cheating. I knew it. I just let her lie to me because it made me feel better. Made the food go down. Made me able to study for a few hours. Made the day pass.

And after she ghosted she’d always come back. Why? Like just why did she come back?

That’s the part that fucked me up so badly.

Because the truth is she was using me. It was a plan. It was plotted. She needed me. For money, for a place to live every time she couldn’t pay her rent and asked to crash at my place. And I’d be like, “Just move in. Then you don’t have to worry about it. Just move in and be with me. Use my car, here, take my credit card and buy whatever you need.”

And she stayed that last time. Said OK and took everything I offered her.

But she didn’t stop. And she didn’t start loving me either.

Instead of me calling her obsessively, or driving by her apartment to see if she was there with someone else, or asking my friends if they’d seen her, I just… I just stayed home in bed, listening for her footsteps on the stairs.

Waiting for her key in the lock.

Hoping she’d come back because somehow she’d made it so I couldn’t live without her.

How do people do that?

It’s weird.

She disappeared for good after that.

And then one day at the end of senior year I saw her with this guy at a park just a few blocks off campus. And there was a kid there. A little baby, like… I dunno. Less than a year, for sure. They were taking turns pushing him in one of those baby swings and he was laughing, and smiling, and having a good time.

So I got out of my car and walked up towards the playground. And she saw me, and then he saw me, and she picked the baby up and turned her back, and he headed straight at me, hand out in front of him. One of those stay back gestures.

And he said, “He’s not yours. So don’t start no shit. We did the DNA test a long time ago, Jordan. Just leave her alone.”

And it hit me.

That feeling in my gut.

When I realized that he knew me. He knew all about me. And it didn’t even matter if it was lies. Because of course, whatever he thought he knew, it was all lies.

I just felt violated because he knew me.

And I knew nothing about him.

Because he was the real boyfriend and I was the other man.

I just never knew it.

Even though I don’t think about her, I do think about him. I wonder… did he ever figure out who she really was? Did he ever figure out that everything she told him was a lie?

And I feel really sad for him. For that kid, too.

Because people who lie like that… it’s a psychosis. It’s a mental illness.

And people like him… like me… we just live with it.

Because it makes the food go down.

My phone buzzes on the seat next to me, drawing me out of the past. I reach over, pick it up, and accept Darrel’s call.

“Give me something,” I say.