You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(116)

“So,” I say. “How’re you doing? You good?”

“Why do you keep asking me that? Jesus Christ, Joe, I am not good. I am not going to be good until I am good, and I will never feel good if you keep asking me like you just want to fuck me or something.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

And then you’re doing it again. Crying. This is how we don’t break in half. You bite my head off a lot, but always, you crumble and fall apart, apologizing ad nauseam. And I like you better like this. Your body convulsing in my arms. Mascara-muddled tears drenching yet another perfectly good sweater. At least I wear black. And then the clouds pass. The storm is over. You are blowing your nose on a dirty tissue and lighting a pink Nat Sherman Fantasia.

Ours is an indoor smoking home now, and the snow globe you got for me is covered in a brown film, but that will change. Change is the only sure thing, like they say. Death and taxes and nicotine stains and change. You will get over this. But when?

“I just…I should’ve called him more. He was my friend.”

No, he was not. He made fun of your special toe and he wanted you in jail. He called you an old maid. He used you. He didn’t love you as a friend or a woman but I say the only thing a good boyfriend can say at a time like this. “I know.”

“He was in so much pain.”

Wrong again. He felt nothing for you or anyone. All semen, no soul. “You tried, Vail. And I know it’s a shock, but if that’s the case”—it is not the case—“well, maybe now he’s at peace.”

“Do you know this girl’s last name? The new girl he was seeing?”

There was no girl. No one was as good as his fucking mother. “Nah, and honestly…he might’ve been exaggerating. I know he was just insecure and all that, but he did that sometimes, you know…He wanted to seem like a baller.”

You sniffle and you shudder like I don’t know him the way you do and hello…I killed him for you.

“Joe, I just…I feel like I should’ve known. Things were not going well with his work, and to think of him alone in the dark like that…I mean, I knew he messed around with drugs, but crack? Did he smoke crack with you?”

Yes. I held the pipe! “I don’t smoke crack.”

You tell me you want the truth, and I tell you it is the fucking truth. “I think you don’t get that I really didn’t know the guy all that well. Don’t get me wrong, okay? I’m sad he’s gone.”

“I know.”

“It’s not like we were best friends or anything. Jeremy moved away and I met Dick through you and I dunno…. He was trying to big-brother me and stuff. And I’m not speaking ill or anything, but he…Yeah. He got into stuff. Steroids and coke, and that’s just…It’s not me.”

It’s not you either, goddamn it, and you twist your greasy hair. “But you guys talked.”

And you guys talked about me. And then some. “A bit.”

“Well, Joe, Dick and I talked a lot, maybe more than you realize.”

I know. I read the IMs and that book is out of print and why the fuck didn’t I bury him in the woods? “Okay.”

I reach for you, but you don’t want me. Not yet. “Sorry. I’m just…I’m mourning.”

If you were the one washing up on Jones Beach he’d use the headline about your corpse to get a pity fuck at Passerby. Girl love is different from guy love, I think. There’s a whole world in your head and truth is not allowed. So here we are. The Mourners. The clock ticks in the way it does now that we live in a sad house. I never noticed the fucking ticking until Dick’s body washed up at Jones Beach. Now it’s all I hear.

“Okay,” you say. “I feel like I shouldn’t say this, but I can’t…I have to talk about it.”

“You can tell me anything.”

“Well, okay, yes, I slept with him a few times.”

I know. “I kinda figured. And I get that, Vail. You guys had a thing.”

“Yeah, but, Joe, it was more than that, okay? He talked to me about stuff. I mean, I knew him. The drugs and the whole ‘baller’ act…He was always trying to get away from himself.”

BECAUSE HE WAS A FUCKING ASSHOLE. “Yeah…Yeah, I see that.”

“Can I tell you something he told me in confidence? And you won’t judge me for breaking his confidence?”

You don’t seem to understand how death works, but you are sweet. “I would never judge you for anything, Vail.”

“Well, the thing is, though, he explicitly asked me not to tell you about it.”

Wait. Did he send you a telepathic message? Did he tell you I killed him or leave some ridiculous letter claiming the cops should look at me in the event of his fucking demise? “Okay.”

You take a deep breath and reach for another cupcake. It’s not easy. I know you’re about to tell me the whole fucking saga. But it’s a necessary moment for us. Let the demons out so they fly away home to hell. “Seriously, Vail, there is nothing you can say that will upset me.”

You like that. You touch me. “Thank you.”

You pick up the blanket. The one you brought all the way from Beverly Hills. “All right. When Dick was little, he was in an accident with a lawn mower, you know, a riding mower.”