You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(123)

I never loved you.

I want to die. Those words are seeping into my skinsuit like cyanide. I never loved you. And now you never will. I popped our bubble and I hid in his computer to shit on you—was I the one on crack?!—and fuck the stupid murder. We all die eventually, but what I wrote to you, those terrible things I put in writing with fucking commas…How did I not see it until now?

My words that I passed off as his words are the cyanide in you.

And look at you, so calm. Back in your chair, staring out the window like you just took a really big, satisfying shit. You would trade me for him in a heartbeat. Did you ever love me, even a little? Did I ever get under your skin? Unbearable questions and I can’t look at you. I may as well hand you the knife and let you stab me in the face, but that’s not your weapon of choice.

I’m so lost in my head that I miss it when you bum-rush me, but here you are, back with your dog tags, wrapping them around my neck. Hating. Touching. Squeezing. You’re in eye-for-an-eye mode, and this time you mean business. You want me gone. Dead. You’re turning the screw and the chain is made of little silver beads and those beads are strong. I can’t breathe and that’s my windpipe. It is closing and that’s okay. I want to cry Uncle Angus. You win. There is nothing left inside of me. I sealed our fate. I muddied the waters and now you’ll never get over him because the closure you thought you had is gone. Mr. Mooney warned me. A little bit of hope can do a whole lot of damage. Is this it for me? Is the thing with feathers gonna chew at me until I bleed out and die?

The closer I get to the end, the more I pat myself on the back. It’s not all my fault. I was too late. Dick ruined you, all those hours you sat in the black hole waiting for him. You didn’t just turn into a hamster. He made you that way, and yes…My Instant Fucking Breakup was a mistake, but do I deserve to die for it? The air is playing hide-and-seek. I can’t find it. Can’t reach it. Every breath feels like the last one, like the first one, like I’m not so good at this, at breathing, and you’re right. I am just a kid. I killed for you, and now that I’m about to die, well, no…I don’t want to die and I am going, going—

The chain snaps. You spring back and scramble to your feet. You didn’t see that coming and in a funny way it feels like the ghost of Dick saved us. A real dog tag chain wouldn’t snap and stop you from doing the undoable. You’re breathing. I’m breathing. The impasse is scary. Somewhere I have never traveled. There’s a bottle of Evian by the snow globe on the table that lives by your chair. I am panting and thirsty and you reach for the bottle—there is hope for us yet—but you do not pick up the bottle of Na?ve spelled backward.

You opt for the snow globe. You shake it and watch the snow settle in this way where I take it all back. I love you. I forgive you. We mesh. We dream together. I liked it in the snow globe and okay. We fucked up. We’re kids. Me with my schoolyard bruises—none of it is really all that fucking bad—and you with your stringy sweaty hair, drowning in my sweats, in your shame, overanalyzing an IM from a man who did nothing but hurt you.

I put a message in a bottle. “That was a great day, the snow globe day.”

“Yeah,” you murmur. “I remember running up the stairs excited for you to see it.”

This has to be good. You’re at peace, back in the orb where the Twin Towers are still standing. The towers that feel like you and me. Weathering the white inferno, hermetically sealed and safe the way it is when you’re in love, when things are so good that nothing can touch you. Yes, Vail. Lean into it. That’s us in there. We can do it.

“I love you, Sitcom.”

Crunk.

You hurled that snow globe at me. It wasn’t a frontal lobe hit but it wasn’t a missed connection. I drop to the ground. My brain is a bouncy house at a birthday party in one of your family photo albums. Is this vertigo? My eyelids flutter. Is this a concussion? Is this how I die? You are moving about the room, hunched and blurry. Giant mouse in a cartoon. A confused, meek creature unaware of its own strength, because it doesn’t make sense, does it? Giant humans are so afraid of you, little you, grabbing at your boots. The dog tags clack as you wrap them around your wrist. You kiss them, not me.

“I can’t be here, Joe. I can’t be here.”

You’re out the door, but you left it open. That’s you, in a nutshell. Even when you leave me, you don’t leave. You didn’t even have the decency to finish the job and kill me or bring me a sip of Evian and what now? What do I fucking do?

I’m fighting my way out of the apartment, stumbling through the stars and the fog that you brought on me. My ribs hum, and as well they fucking should. I don’t want to feel better. I don’t want to heal. Not without you. You ran for the same reason you always run. You’re ashamed. You need me, whether you like it or not, and yours is the good kind of insanity. Temporary.

Yes, my love. Despite every Kelly Demon in your stunted, self-destructive, mousy little heart, all I want is you.

Is that love? Wanting you more than I want me. Bellying up to the bar for a J?ger bomb to ease the pain of last night’s J?ger bombs? I think maybe it is. The thing with feathers is trying to beat its way back to life. I wipe the blood off my lips. I never loved you. I don’t care. Fuck that. Fuck commas and semicolons. All couples fight, and we’ll chalk this up to grief, the time you went nuts and accused me of murder, the day you lost control because you didn’t know how to be loved and you were too scared to ask for directions. You lost someone you cared about and you lost your mind and yeah, okay, I shouldn’t have gone in Dick’s stupid computer but….