YOU WANT MY VERSION of the story? Well, I’m on my way to the courthouse to tell it, but whatever. I’ll give you a sneak peek. I swear, I’ve been honest with you the whole time. I never killed anybody. And if Mark didn’t need to literally have everything he wanted, he might still be around.
“She’s hot,” I told him. She wasn’t dressed for mini golf. She had barely anything on, just this tiny skirt and a top that showed her boobs. And she kept looking over at us. Not smiling exactly, but kind of smirking.
“She’s too young,” Mark said. We were one hole behind them. I wanted to catch up, but of course he wanted to do everything by the rules. Each stroke had to be recorded, even though it was just a group of us guys, me and Mark and a couple high school friends we had more or less lost touch with. It was supposed to be for fun, but Mark was like the stern dad, right down to the obnoxious little pencil behind his ear.
“Suit yourself,” I said.
But she started kicking the ball in with her foot, and when I went to take a leak, he took it upon himself to give her commentary on her form. By the time I got back, they were flirting. Two hours later, they were making out. It was like he knew I was going to make a move if he didn’t. Mark not only wanted the things he wanted, but he wanted the things everyone else did, too.
You know he only took up swimming because of me? Because my mom was bugging me to do a sport, and I sucked at all the usual team shit, so I joined the swim team. And Mark joined with me. He said he had always been interested in it, but I think he couldn’t possibly let me have something that he wasn’t part of.
You know how that ended. How he ended up being the best. How he got all the glory, all the medals, the records, the scholarship. And the girls—always ones he knew I was into.
I asked him about Tabby, the day after they met. She was already texting him nonstop, and I could tell when he was messaging her back, because he had this goofy grin on his face. Already in the goddamned honeymoon period.
“I said she was hot,” I said after a few beers on my shitty little apartment balcony. “Then you went after her.”
He had the nerve to act shocked. “Dude, I thought you meant her friend. Actually, you and Elle would be a good couple. I’ll make sure she’s there next time we all hang out.”
It was only when he left that I said to the door, “I didn’t mean her friend, and you fucking knew it.”
Maybe everything that happened next was as much my fault as his. I never really stood up to the guy. I think because I knew he’d argue his way out of it, do that thing he did where he made me feel like I was making shit up in my head. I heard him do it to Tabby, too, when they fought. Make her seem like the crazy one. He would have been a good lawyer.
I mean, I’m not innocent. I did stuff. I put ideas in her head about Mark having girls at Princeton. She’d see a picture on Instagram and flash it at me in the grocery store, demanding to know who it was, and I’d make up some story, just because I knew she was already jealous. She was an easy fire to feed.
Just remember, though. He knew I saw her first, and he didn’t care. And I think that was the moment he stopped being my friend. Most people just see the surface. But there was another side of Mark. A monster who never got full, no matter how much food you gave it. Kind of like how his swimming diet made him eat a ton of calories every day. His appetite for everything else was just as hard to fill.