It was too good to be true. Out of the gaggle of self-absorbed nincompoops she had held on to, out of the massive narcissistic ego trust she’d chosen, the one she let push himself into her life was lowest, the very one he would have chosen for her to make her life miserable. No doubt her dipshit friends were pushing it as well, only concerned with his being marginally affiliated with their clique, not his obvious cringiosity. They’d done that before, and she’d never learned. 

A sad sack of a man who thought because he’d decided to hit the gym after middle age and get his hair did that he was suddenly some kind of catch. The smallest dick in her line up, who believed a gun fetish made him appear manly, a child who stopped to gawk at overpriced cars and made sure everyone knew he did. One of the confirmed infants, who thought that portraying himself as pious made him so. That was the one she let force her attention, and, as was her neurosis, she made herself believe it was wanted. None of it made him anything but another jackass like her ex. It didn’t make him look any less like an 80-year old Italian woman, with smug dictator and sociopathy written all over his face. It didn’t lessen the palpable feeling his entire presence cast that he was an incel loser who couldn’t find any other woman to cling to as his mommy/maid and, therefore, had to set his sights all the way across the country and into the past. The fact hat the guy never had a woman didn’t even make a dent in her tick head, and, of course, there was a reason for that. The guy radiated real Anton Chigurh vibes. But she was a fool, always had been, and nothing spoke to her other than the fact that he was someone she knew.

She didn’t really know him, however. She’d been marginally affiliated with him back in the day, memories she let twist her current perception, but, she had, assuredly, never really knew him well and he had never shown any interest until recently. And, after decades, when he did not even live in her area of the country, she didn’t know him at all. He’d no reason whatsoever to start contacting her, other than the fact that he’d realized he was a creep and was scared of having no one to control. He didn’t know her either, but her idiotic desire for attention from any man had led her to tell him things she shouldn’t have, just for pity, things he could use … and he did so now. He saw her as a loser, easy to take advantage of, nothing more, and, even if she sensed that, she leaned into it. She’d never have the self-respect to toss the used-car-salesman-looking narc, who’d probably owned more than one pair of white loafers. And she was, likely, willing to throw away all she knew and relocate to a real shithole of a state where men from her area who had failed at being people went to play big shot. She’d done it before. 

It was beautiful. The one she had stabbed, misdirected, lied about, and lied to, the one whose life she’d tried to ruin to reap herself the greatest amount of pity, saw no one better for her, the pick of the lot in the worst ways, the biggest fucking embarrassment and, ultimate, the greatest disaster she could have chosen. He was euphoric about it, as if he’d handpicked the mismatch. He’d never wanted to take revenge upon her, because that wasn’t who he was. But he’d known she would punish herself, one way or another, and that troglodyte was the cherry on the shit sundae. When she became Mrs. Ugly-Ass-Incel-Dweeb, he would have his revenge, because there was literally nothing that caustic clown could offer her but a name and a leash cast in jealousy, life under his thumb, since he would always fear she would find someone better. She was going to blow her last token on Ed Gein, and it was perfect. A better ending to a script could not be written.