It Almost Feels Like Summer

I know what you did. You sick, slimy cheat. Worthless bastard. She stayed because she pitied you, yet you strut as if you’re a prize, as if you could ever match her worth. You surround yourself with women who feed the fantasy that your frat-boy attitude counts for something. They make you believe you deserve attention.  She should have taken her own revenge. Instead, she laughed when you kissed the first girl who looked your way. You needed it, any scrap to make you feel wanted. You have no plan, no direction, no use, yet you lecture her on wasting your time when all that time you stole hers. Since the day she met you, you’ve added nothing to her life. The only vows you’ve ever honoured are helplessness, victimhood, and disappointment. Thank God you never reached her level. If she had chosen you—

boyfriend, husband—I’d have torn that bond apart myself. No one thinks you deserve her. No one believes you could ever rise to her worth.

 

“Summer time.” He choked on the words, his gaze sliding to the moment they met. He’d shaped it into a pleasant memory. Forced to drag it up, he admitted to himself it was the first time her smile had felt real. In the back of his mind, the worry scratched, maybe she pitied him. He said he had no money then, same as now. No job. Still at his mother’s. Still on her couch. There was a girlfriend somewhere in the picture, but she’d been away. They’d taken a break. She came along at the perfect time. He twisted against the itch on his fingertip, the cuffs biting deeper. “When we met…” His thoughts pulled him back. The red dress slit high enough to tease her thigh. Athletic frame—Pilates, maybe. A runner. He traced the lines of muscle with his eyes, the way they caught the light. Everyone noticed her. He could tell by the way she drew them in, eyes inviting, lips almost whispering a challenge. He took it.

“Winston.” His hand extended. Her gaze left the glass, locked on him, weighing every wrong turn she was about to take.

She told him he was not the one for her. Left his hand in the air. Picked up the stray straw beside her, slid it into a cider the waiter dropped off.

Winston caught the movement behind him—a man’s hand, claiming space beside her. She dipped the straw, lifted it toward that man, then turned the gesture on Winston from across the room. Same eyes. Same mouth. Same words under her breath.

He heard her sigh—he was not the one for her.

The waiter returned, a business card balanced on a tray. “Romero Bates,” he said. Her smile deepened. She slid the card into her bra, knowing full well she was being watched. She looked up at Winston, as if suddenly remembering him, and repeated it. He was not the one for her.

 

“You’re not the one for me.”

Tears slid down his face. Fear froze him under the masked figure’s shadow. He said she made that clear the first day. He told himself to remember it she was never his. With her, anything beyond her control faded into the background. He claimed he took a back—

Blood burst from his mouth. The man’s strike cut the sentence short. Pain snapped him out of the haze. Winston shook his head hard, let the tears spill.

 

“This is what you wanted.” The man’s hiss scorched the air. He grabbed a fistful of Winston’s hair, yanked his head back. “You dumb, stupid son of a bitch. You wanted to be her victim so badly you stole from her, lied about where you were, let her worry while you drowned yourself in drink. You weren’t missing—you were rotting. I watched what it did to her. You’re my victim now, bitch.”

 

The blow landed again. Same force. Same target. The ring tore into skin. This time, a tooth hit the floor.

*****

 

I know she liked you. I know she made you feel safe. I know she told you she loved you, once, maybe twice. And you believed her. You climbed on her yacht. You moved her into your mansion. You sent her bouquets of roses. You wrote letters from your trips, describing what you’d do to her when you returned. You filthy bag. Mud-soaked rug. Wanker. God, I hated how she humoured your empty talk about her beauty. How she pandered to your fragile pride after losing some worthless paddle contest. She told you she’d share you with any woman for the rest of her life. I laughed at that. And you, you ran to your ex every time she turned you away. That ex who lied to your face while planning to marry another man ten days after you swore your love.

If the law allowed it, if she gave me the word, I’d have buried you for her. That would have been my gift—her inheriting every scrap you owned while dropping roses on your grave, each one bought with your own credit. I wanted her to hate you. You lazy, cheap whore.

 

“Discipline. Stability.” His voice shook, blood running over his lips where the staples pinned his mouth. “A man’s strength came from his will, she said…”

The masked man’s palm cracked across his face, snapping his head to the side.

“Go on.” The order came low, steady, laced with vengeance. The mask hid his identity, but his eyes promised a personal hell. “Go on.”

“I kissed a girl.” Drool hung from his mouth as the ropes bit into his chest, his legs locked in cuffs, his hands chained to a hanger from the ceiling. The fresh drill holes in the walls made it clear the man in the mask intended to keep him here. In this exact position. He repeated himself. “I kissed her. It was a mistake. I felt guilty. I mean, I went to the club with her, we played pool, I had too much to drink. She took me home. We made out.”

The masked man grabbed his face, slammed it into a photo on the wall, then flipped it. A woman stared back—close to forty, close to his age.

“Her?” The man’s jaw clenched.

He narrowed his eyes. It was her.

“What’s her name?”

He stalled, breath shallow, the silence saying more than words.

The punch landed; clean, heavy, deliberate. Practice showed in the strike. The truth settled in: this man would let him bleed.

 

“It’s shame Romero,” the man’s voice came, cold and sure, “for a man who supposedly has more to give you’re just another taker.”

 

I know you’re a giver. You finish what you start, even when the project is beneath you: Winston, Romero, Kieran. Your life runs on completions, no matter how brutal or undeserving the subject. You poured yourself into them after I proved they were takers, people who trade in promises they never keep, intentions they never act on. A thousand apologies dressed in poetic excuses.

 

Was it Winston? Yes. Winston. He rants about you wasting his time because you refuse to marry him, yet he sleeps in his mother’s basement, hunts for shortcuts to make money, and wails every weekend about being broke. He’s never paid a dinner bill, never covered a date, yet he speaks of wasted time. Men like him deserve the woman I sent his way, one you must pay to love you, then pay again to strip you of your dignity. Watching him suffer gave me exactly what I wanted. I still liked him more than Romero.

 

At least Winston knew his place. Romero never believed he had one. Manipulation was his craft. He bought your love but never earned it. You gave him the life he asked for, polyamory, and he ran to his ex, crying on her lap about how you  disrespect him. At the sight of your happiness, he told you that you treated him as disposable, then bragged about the day he got hard simply because his lack of intellect made him want you on your knees.

 

I’ve had enough of watching this. All summer, I’ve watched.

**********

“Summer Thornton, you are under arrest for the kidnapping of Winston Roads, Romero Winds, and Kieran Childs. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney—”

The words sealed her in. Sirens pressed in on her until they were the only sound left.

When she came to in the interrogation room, her tongue heavy, a woman with a wry smile waited across from her.

“Yes. My name is Summer Thornton.”

“We have significant evidence tying you to the disappearance of Winston Roads, Romero Winds, and Kieran Childs.”

Her attorney was on the way. Minutes felt longer when measured by her pulse. She said she didn’t understand. Claimed she had dated them, that they had never been a match but parted on good terms. They moved on. She moved on. Her lips tightened. She asked why they would say otherwise. The panic in her chest outran the speed of her words.

“Jealousy is a disease Mrs Thornton, it brings the worst of us.It is Mrs?”

“Jealousy?” Her voice thinned to the point of collapse. “I left them.”

A sharp knock at the door froze the air. The detective excused herself. When the door opened again, he was there.

“Dean.”

Dean Thornton. Her husband. Her lawyer. He crossed the room in three strides, took her hand, and matched the pace of her distress. His arm wrapped around her, the back of her head cushioned under his palm. Bruises marked his fingers. He buried them in her hair, away from the detective’s eyes.

 

“I’m here now. I will take care of it,” he murmured. “I’m here for you.”