“So… you’re here about to kill yourself because they paired you up with a fat chick, and you reacted by… being a dude?”
Cliff closed his black eyes.
“We were together in there for six months. Day in, day out. It was like co-ed jail. She knew everything about me. Not the facts, but… me. She knew me. And I knew her. We fucked. We fucked a lot. She was a virgin when she got there, you know? But sexual. Real fuckin’ sexual. Like… the kind I always dreamed about. She had these huge tits,” he sniffed, snot trickling out of his nostrils. But he was still holding on to the railing with both hands and he didn’t seem to notice. “Wasn’t really my thing, but… it became my thing. She became my thing. She fuckin’ loved me, bro. And I just… let her go.”
Felix fully got the picture now. Poor bastard.
“You thought you could do better than her. Easy.”
“She was my fucking Match, dude! My parents said I’d been on a waiting list for a year when they got the call. And then I waited a year to get matched,” he heaved, full-on crying now. He let go of the rail with one arm to wipe his face with his jacket sleeve. “I tried to move on. Immediately. I left there, and I got fucked up… some chick gave me crabs,” he confessed, bawling and leaking water from every opening in his raw face. He removed one of his arms to cover his face with his jacket sleeve and sob. It took everything in Felix not to rush out and grab him and give himself away. He stiffened and kept his eyes on Cliff while he signaled the other car. Cliff continued.
“I hadn’t watched any porn in six months, and I got home… Jesus. It was like the situation room at the fuckin’ pentagon. Fuckin’ twelve windows open…”
“Well Cliff, I gotta tell ya, your ‘piece of shit’ assessment sounds pretty accurate.”
Cliff just nodded.
“I say, before you make this decision, you run it by your ‘match’ first.”
“I just told you, I have no way of tracking her down.”
“Can’t be that hard. I mean, I’m a cop, I got… resources. Fat chick, African American, got enough dough to afford this program…”
“She sings. Really good. Like a fucking angel.”
“See? The haystack is getting smaller and smaller.”
“Who are you, anyway?”
“Who am I? I’m Felix.”
“Okay.”
“Him over there, that’s Officer Paul.”
Cliff looks over his shoulder in the direction Felix is looking in and sees another officer closing in on him. To his credit, Felix doesn’t gloat about how long he’s been able to stall and get Cliff talking. He just continues his conversation earnestly.
“Now we won’t put the cuffs on you, you’re not under arrest.”
“I can’t go home. I’m not going back to my parents’ house.”
“We’ll take you wherever you want.”
“Wherever I want?”
“Well, within reason. There’s a couple of places—”
“I don’t want to go to some hospital.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t wanna talk to a shrink.”
“Fine, I’ll drop you off at my house. You can meet the wife, the kids. Put a little pallet on the couch for you.”
“Really?”
“No, bro.”
Cliff stared at him a bit and then snickered. Felix smiled. He looked over at Officer Paul, who was well within range to stop him from doing what he was thinking. Calmly he sniffed, his blotchy face calm as he put one leg over the railing and then the other. A few onlooking cars honked as if in support as the trio made it back to Felix’s squad car.
“So what do you wanna—”
Before Felix could finish his sentence, Cliff had already found his out.
The bus blared its hideous horn as Cliff quickly backed himself away from the officers and into the traffic.
Felix instinctively turns his head away from the carnage. He’d made the mistake of not looking away before, and it wasn’t worth nightmares.
But he’ll never forget the sound.
Chapter 1
Bria
This is it. I’ve officially hit rock bottom. I’ve let myself go, with no signs of letting up. So you’d think I wouldn’t be surprised when the day comes.
Ever since I got back from Halcyon, I haven’t been able to eat my feelings fast enough. I went back to school, finished my degree at USC and drowned myself in fried cheese. I can’t bear to look at a scale, but I’ve been up and down enough that I’m practically an honorary dietician.
I know I’m 300 lbs now, at least. I just know that. And all I’ve done about it up to now is worry. I can’t bear to leave the house anymore for the shame. I sure as shit can’t go out networking and apply for jobs. I was trying to move on, or at least I somehow convinced myself that’s what I was doing. Anyone could look at me and see I was stuck.
And now? Now I’m literally stuck. For real. After flailing and wheezing and panting from trying to sit up it’s finally happened. I can’t get out of the bed.
Rock bottom. I woke up every day in fear of it. But I never expected it to be this… literal. I just lay on my bed weeping. Fuck! My sister Skye is on speaker with the phone next to me on the pillow. She just sits and listens to me being the most pitiful human being that’s ever lived. And I know it’s a lot to put on her. It’s a lot to put on anyone. But I literally can’t hold in another thing.
“Just move to Houston, Bria. With me,” Skye says sympathetically. Hardly any real solution, but that isn’t surprising. Skye’s solution to every problem was always, “just come with me to this thing.”
I sigh. “I don’t know, Skye. What would be the point?”
“Well, for one, wouldn’t be alone. For two, you’ll be far away from Mom, which we all need. You said you wanted to get from out of the Forrester shadow. And to do that you gotta leave L.A. The music scene is jumping in Houston. 4D Acres is building its next satellite office here.”
“That means getting on a plane…”
“Not right away. Just get yourself back down to your pre-Halcyon weight for now. I know you can do that in a pinch. What’ll that take, a month?”
The inner me was screaming in agony but I was done listening to that bitch. She’s insane. Look at me!
Skye was the only one brave enough to talk about my weight ballooning as a matter of practicality. Unless you count the paparazzi.
“'In a pinch.’ Because it’s so easy, Skye.”
“No, it isn’t. That’s why you should start now.”
The very thought of trying to scrape up enough willpower to get to the fires of weight loss Mordor is exhausting. It’s exhausting when I’m optimistic. Now there’s no relief in sight.
“No, Skye. I know when I’m not ready, and I’m just not. I’m just too beat up.”
“That’s your own doing, Bri.”
My heartbeat instantly doubles defensively. Not Skye too.
“How can you say that? After what’s happened? After what they posted?”