Page 99

CHAPTER 99

THE VOLCANO SPEAKS

MARGAUX

B y the time I’m ready to hit ‘send,’ my hands are trembling. Every word feels loaded with history, anger, and truth.

This message isn’t just a response to Phil’s accusations—it’s my statement of self-defense against the mountain of lies and gaslighting that has been suffocating me, perpetrated just as much by Timmy’s enabling father, Phil, as by Timmy himself.

Before I send it, I reach out to Alice.

Me:

Hey, can you proofread something for me and give a send or don’t send opinion?

I want to send it to his dad, bc I’m so furious about being gaslit.

Alice:

Sure, I’ll look it over.

Me:

Thank you, here it is:

I paste the message into the chat.

I wrote this last night and waited to send this today given the time difference. It is a long message, but I think it would be helpful to share with you in order to get Timmy the help he needs.

I moved here almost one year ago in March 2023.

Within 2 weeks, Timmy invites his boss, Parker, to my apartment, where they get into an argument, and Parker threatens to mess up the building where I live, and compromise my ability to live there.

Within 3 weeks, Timmy threatens to kill me, and slams me to the ground and tries to shove deer antlers into my anus. Because he is ‘mad at my neighbor,’ and so he took a bunch of trazodone with alcohol to ‘calm down’. Several people overhear him and call the police. He admits to everything, apologizes profusely, and I refuse to pursue charges bc I want to believe he is a good person and that this was an isolated incident, even though it was terrifying having a 200lb man physically attack me.

After this, Timmy is banned from a 100-yard radius from the apartment building for a year. The prosecutor wants to have him banned from all of downtown Sunset Cay. They say he has a track record of this behavior and is dangerous.

We move to the other side of the Cay—at his suggestion—so he will be away from his ‘bad influences,’ and he promises he will not wander off on benders. He wanders off on benders, and one day he smashes my head to the ground, fracturing my skull when I listen to a song he ‘doesn’t like’ (but that he also plays all the time), and squeezes his hands around my throat. Women who have been strangled by their partner even once are 750% more likely to be killed by that same partner. I have to live with this statistic.

I’m told he is entering tents with women over by the drug dealers.

I’m told he is doing drugs.

I’m not sure if either of those things are true, but he is certainly coming back drunk even though he has ‘no money’, when he tells me you are giving him money for alcohol.

Can you imagine how any of this feels?

I wake up at around 3AM on multiple occasions, and he is off drinking with the people who live in the tents. We had discussed that leaving in the middle of the night was not okay and crossed the boundaries of our relationship. He promised not to do it ever again.

Timmy then has me arrested, accusing me of scratching him when he scratches himself on an almost daily basis running along the reef shelf, etc. Later, he says it’s bc he didn’t want to go to jail and thought I might put him there, so he called law enforcement first. I don’t even have long nails and I have never scratched anyone intentionally. His back has a massive scar from when he purposely scratched himself a couple of months ago.

Timmy said to the cops that I strangled him, and threatened him with a weapon, when those are things he has done to me, and I have never done to him. He acknowledged this later and admitted he embellished his version of events because he was angry and ‘wanted to mess my life up’.

When I am in jail, and for the 2 days I am not allowed to return to the apartment, he breaks into my computer and messages multiple people telling them I am in jail. And then calls my friend Josephine, leaving an abusive voicemail in which he calls her the n word and a cunt. He says he did this because he believed she is a man and that I am having sex with 'him' in Sunset Cay. She is a woman who is in Washington DC.

I encourage Timmy into therapy, a better medication, and keep asking him to get a job. He does therapy sporadically and stops taking his meds, then takes them again, but not consistently. I buy a laptop for his graphic design which he agrees to pay me back for.

Flash forward past many other incidents you are aware of…

Darren’s memorial: I was extremely supportive of Timmy as soon as he found out his friend passed, and I could see him spiraling. I attempted to help. It was scary in the lead-up, and I could see this event was a huge trigger for him. I did set boundaries for the event and said he needed to not drink too much and not run off, and be respectful as a partner. To introduce me and make sure I could be there with and for him. It was observed by others that if I attempted to talk to people (I didn’t know anyone except for him and Steve), that he would run up and act weird. But then he kept running off and was clearly becoming more erratic. I had no faith he would return to the other side of the Cay or be safe. I was not jealous, I was concerned by his erratic behavior and frustrated he wasn’t trying to keep to what we agreed. I don't know about a second person who he hugged, and would have no problem with him hugging a friend at his friend's memorial. Darren was a known drug dealer who died of a suspected fentanyl overdose. I was frankly terrified Timmy would end up taking drugs because he was upset and the same thing could happen to him. Timmy did attend the ceremony. He even attended the paddle-out, and it was very touching, and I posted about it on my Facebook with pictures at the time.

By this stage, I’m so stressed and dealing with health issues, and his spiraling from Darren’s death, that I’ve eaten almost nothing for 6 weeks. I try to but I cannot keep much food down. I am in constant pain with vomiting and diarrhea. Timmy’s erratic behavior is intensifying.

The truck incident happens the following day. I am not a liar. I am not crazy. I said what I believed was happening to me at the time. I am embarrassed by the event and my only other traffic incident was a speeding ticket from New Zealand when I was in my early 20s.

Timmy has changed his story about why he lost the job with Robert several times. He has told me repeatedly that he thinks it’s just neighbors being gossipy, but when he is being mean, he blames me. He told me at first he didn’t raise his voice to Robert when Robert critiqued Timmy’s work, but later said he did raise his voice to Robert, and that’s why he thinks he was fired. I have heard maybe 5 versions of the story.

Timmy has cost me over $10k at this point on needless expenses, wasting my money because he is drunk or otherwise acting belligerent. Lease break fees on my first apartment, throwing my phone in the ocean, many car bills to be able to get tags bc the vehicle wasn’t roadworthy, his bail for drunk driving, pouring a drink on my laptop intentionally, AirPods that he took without my permission and lost when he was drunk, and so on. I am not including his share of living expenses here. If I did, the figure would significantly increase. He also took my diamond rings that I designed with an assessed value of $5k and put them in his rectum while he was in jail. He returned them but they are missing again.

I have said mean things to your son. He has said mean things to me. He has physically abused me and verbally abused me time after time after time.

My last partner and I were in a relationship for 6 years. He was career military and a good person, and he never laid a finger on me or vice versa. My other longest relationship was a career detective who I was married to, and with for 5+ years. Again, no issues with domestic violence or abusive arguments. Our breakups were amicable, and no property was damaged.

Darren and Timmy’s last text conversation was when Timmy took my phone and called Darren the n word said a bunch of rageful things. Darren shared that Timmy is a terrible alcoholic and his last words to me were, ‘Good luck with your man child’.

Steve stopped talking to Timmy until Darren died, after Timmy threatened to kill all of Steve’s friends on Molokai, because one of them critiqued the way he painted Steve’s I-beams.

Before they both cut him off, both Darren and Steve shared that they can only take Timmy in small quantities.

After the first incident when I moved here and he tried to kill me, I met with Jennifer, and she told me many things about Timmy’s behavior. While I do not believe everything she said, and do not agree with her infidelity, many of the things that she said about his behavior are things I had experienced for myself firsthand.

So I do not appreciate you calling me a liar, accusing me of terrorizing or attacking your son, or of being a ‘volcano of pain,’ or whatever that was. I don’t appreciate receiving a nearly 20-minute voicemail stating all of this when I am trying to deal with the situation.

I understand you are upset because your son is off the rails and that he hurt himself. But that is not on me. He has a pattern, and needs help that none of us are equipped to provide. At least 4 people have filed restraining orders against him. He has 4 pages of criminal records just in Sunset Cay. Nobody wants him to hurt himself or anybody else, except maybe him.

There are so many times I would have been happy to speak with you about what we do here and how we can best help.

On Sunday night, he sent a flurry of strange messages (some were sexual, some were about how he was messing the apartment up). He said I was there when I was not anywhere near there, moving the truck and entering the apartment. He sent a picture which in the middle of the night looked like he had spilled acaí, and he sent me a kiss emoji right after it.

It was only when I woke up yesterday morning, and saw you had called saying he was committing suicide, and saw he had posted his bloody pictures on two of my unrelated Facebook posts, that I realized it was actually blood.

So please do not message me anything else offensive. I understand you are upset your son is acting out, but this behavior far predates me as shown by online criminal records and his own admissions, and I don’t need or deserve to be attacked. I’m glad he is physically safe.

As I reread it, the weight of everything Timmy has put me through over the past year bears down on me. From the first incident with Parker, to the latest manipulative stunt involving his father, the spiral of abuse has been relentless.

Alice takes her time reading.

Alice:

Good. Respond to nothing they say.

Me:

Sending now.

Thank you for reading it.

Alice:

I know this is hard and unfair.

I press send, my stomach churning.

Immediately, a wave of emotions crashes over me—relief, anger, fear, and the faintest hint of hope that maybe—just maybe—this will force Phil to look at the reality of his son’s behavior.

But deep down, I know it’s unlikely.

Timmy’s manipulation runs deep, and Phil’s denial is a fortress I can’t penetrate.

Phil is what’s known in narcissistic abuse terms as a ‘flying monkey’ to Timmy, always willing to do his bidding and come to his defense, even in the face of hard evidence against him. Appealing to a flying monkey typically doesn’t do shit.

Still, this isn’t for him. It’s for me. To reclaim my narrative. To remind myself that I’m not crazy, no matter how much Timmy or his flying monkey of a father try to convince me otherwise.

The day stretches on. I wait for a reply, though I already know what it will say if it comes.

Alice’s words stick with me— Respond to nothing they say.

I glance at Sabre, curled up next to me, his soft purring the only sound in the room. For now, that’s enough.

I’ve said my piece.

And for the first time in a long time, I feel a sliver of control returning.

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and let the silence settle around me.