Page 130

CHAPTER 130

I'M DONE

MARGAUX

I t’s time to end things. Beyond time.

“Timmy,” I say, glancing at him as he sits on the bed next to me, frowning. “Enough is enough. I can’t be with you any more. We’re breaking up. I mean it this time.”

“I agree,” he says. “You’re not good for me.”

He retreats to the back room, and I hear his muffled voice on the phone.

A few minutes later, he returns.

“Dad said he’d fly me back on Tuesday,” he says. “I’m going to Montana so I don’t have to be around you.”

It’s Thursday. I just have to hang on for five more days. I can do this.

I nod. “Okay, that’s good,” I say.

His expression turns. “You have a sickness!” he yells, gesticulating wildly at the TV. “You have an illness from watching… these shows! This is why you’re such a cunt! I can’t stand your shows, and I can’t stand you !”

“Okay, Timmy,” I say.

Gray rock, gray rock.

“You’re such a fucking cunt, you know that?”

I don’t respond, just look at him blankly.

“I’m so sick of hearing about you being raped,” he sneers.

I haven’t mentioned it in at least six months, and the words hit like a slap, but I say nothing. Correcting him isn’t going to help. My stomach churns.

What a horrible thing for anybody to say, especially someone who claims to love you and care about you.

“And I’m so sick of hearing about your dead uncle. ”

I feel bile rise in my throat. The words hit like a sucker punch, each one calculated to wound. It’s like he’s wielding a scalpel, cutting precisely where he knows it will hurt most.

But I haven’t mentioned my uncle for at least six months, either. Especially because Timmy clearly seemed to have a problem whenever I did—said I had an ‘unhealthy obsession’ with him. But again, no point in correcting him.

“And I’m so sick of hearing about your fucking period! ” he finishes, his voice dripping with disgust.

Wow, the times he claimed to support me each month while I writhed in pain.

I guess it all meant nothing to him.

I stare at him, incredulous. I can’t stay silent. “What the hell?” I snap. “I have endometriosis and adenomyosis, ” I snap. “I’m in excruciating pain every month. I have to talk about it.”

It’s kind of hard not to when it leaves me incapacitated, vomiting, and bedridden every month.

“Well, I’m sick of it,” he says. “And I can’t wait until I don’t have to hear about it anymore.”

What an odd choice of things to criticize me for—what a barrage of low blows.

But to hear him spew these topics back at me with such venom? It’s like he’s gone into a new level of cruelty.

Shit. I’m not going to make a dent in his logic, and he’s just lashing out.

Gray rock, gray rock.

His frown grows deeper, his gaze locked with mine. “You are not my penguin anymore.”

The words hit harder than I expect, but I don’t let it show.

Instead, I nod. “No, I’m not. And I never really was.”

I feel foolish for everything I’ve poured into this man. The time, the money, the love—it all feels wasted on someone who never truly loved me back.

He didn’t love me.

He loved the way I made him feel about himself.

Part of me still wants to believe he cares. That he’s just broken and unable to show it. But then I remember his rage.

His hatred of women.

The way he’s left a trail of destruction through his relationships, each one worse than the last.

He’ll kill someone someday. I’m certain of it.

Maybe it’ll be the next partner who can’t meet his impossible expectations.

Maybe it’ll be someone at a bar who ‘hurts his feelings.’

Hell, maybe it’ll even be his own father, when the man finally stops enabling him.

They say a narcissist’s mask can only stay on for about 120 days. That tracks almost perfectly with how long it took Timmy to reveal his true self after the period of calm—the selfish, manipulative, rage-filled man behind the charming facade.

And I just have to make it through to Tuesday to be out of this nightmare.

Timmy starts removing items from the apartment one by one.

First, it’s the jungle of plants outside the screen door. He starts with the plant that Francois lives in—a little lizard I’ve named who comes and looks at me and Sabre throughout the day. It’s a petty act—something he knows will make me sad.

Then it’s his tools. “Please leave your tools here,” I say. “I can maybe sell them to pay back some of the money you owe me.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “Oh you can keep them. My sentimental value for them is ten thousand dollars .” There’s a chill in his voice that sends a shiver down my spine.

“Timmy, please, you’re being ridiculous.”

He shoves past me and walks off with his bag of tools, bulging at the seams. Definitely not worth ten thousand dollars, but certainly a few hundred.

Next, it’s the rice cooker. He walks it over to the meth tents.

I call Phil. “Please help,” I beg. “He’s removing items from the apartment and taking them over to the meth tents. Plants, his tools, now the rice cooker.”

“Well, I know he’s upset,” says Phil. “You must have upset him again. It takes two, you know.”

I snap, blood boiling in my temples. I want to reach through the phone and grab his throat and squeeze and squeeze until his eyeballs bulge from their sockets.

What an absolute fucking moron.

“It doesn’t fucking take two!” I scream into the phone. “I can’t breathe without him getting mad at me. Don’t you understand that your son has a real problem?”

Timmy’s dad, Phil, sighs heavily. “Well, I don’t necessarily agree with all that,” he says. “I’ll talk to him in the morning.”

If both of us are still alive by then, I think grimly.

I shudder, the instinctive fear in my body moving faster than my mind can process. Somewhere deep inside, I know my mortality—and Sabre’s—is in real danger. But this idiot on the other end of the line can’t— or won’t —see it.

We hang up. I’m seething, and I need a drink to calm my shattered nerves.

With a friend on speakerphone to make me feel safer about navigating a path full of tweakers, I walk to the convenience store up the street. On the other side of the street, I see Timmy standing with his arm propped up against the entrance to a large tent, holding court with some of his meth friends. One of the few white male surfer-looking guys in the entire neighborhood. It’s most definitely him.

I don’t acknowledge him or any of the people he’s with. I just keep walking, and return home with a bottle of wine and some vodka.

I call Phil, beyond annoyed.

“He’s at the meth tents,” I say, my voice tight with frustration. “I just saw him there.”

“No he’s not,” Phil scoffs, as if I’m a delusional idiot— projection, I guess . “He’s at the beach near the tents. He’s not at the tents.”

I nearly drop the phone. “I was standing here— looking at him —and you’re several states away.” I roll my eyes. “But sure, Phil. Go ahead and tell me what I’m seeing.”

“Well, he’s not at the tents,” he says dismissively.

Okay, moron. I can physically see your son and you’re in a whole other city, but believe what you want.

Fucking idiot.

Blood rushes to my temples. “Your son told me he lies to you. He admits it. And you fall for it every fucking time. ”

“There’s no need to swear,” Phil says, his tone scolding. Why don’t you just leave?” he asks.

Blood hammers in my temples. I’m literally repeating what his son said, and his dad is acting like I’m making it all up.

“Because he’s done things like pour water all over my laptop. And threatened to kill my cat.”

“Margaux, you really need to stop dredging up the past,” Phil says. I want to leap through the phone and kill this man. I would enjoy every second of it. What a fucking dimwit.

“Phil,” I say, my voice dangerously low, “if you could get your head out of your ass for two seconds, maybe we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”