Casey
Hour by hour, day by day, he endured it—the crushing weight of choices he couldn’t unmake. After the implosion, he ran. Checked into a hotel in Century City. Told work he had “some personal stuff.” Closed the blinds. Drank a bottle of whiskey. Then woke up and did it again.
For three days and nights, Casey hid. Just him, the whiskey, and his phone, the only portal to the outside world. He came to dread his device. The barrage never stopped. Daphne begging, threatening, demanding to see him. Lili firing off a novel-length text.
He’d never loved her, she claimed. She’d been a prop, a tool for his ego. The only thing she knew now was that she’d never love again, trust again, laugh again. She acted like her life was over. As if the life they’d built was gone for good.
He wanted to tell her everything. That Raf wasn’t just an affair. That Alexander wasn’t just her therapist. That she needed to stop seeing him immediately. But the words felt impossible.
When he finally goes back, he feels like a ghost. He passes their apartment and imagines Lili inside—curled in bed, or packing to flee to Connecticut, or just sitting alone in the dark.
He keeps moving. A minute later, he’s at Alexander’s door. He knocks. Waits. Knocks again. Then, movement on the other side. The door cracks open.
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“Come inside,” Alexander says, an unreadable calm masking the threat beneath.
“This is over,” Casey growls, brushing past him, forcing every step, every breath, out of sheer fury. “You can’t leverage me anymore.”
Alexander shrugs, a half-smile hinting at amusement. “Sure I can.”
“No,” Casey says, firmer this time. “If anything, I have leverage over you. So listen carefully. Leave me alone, or I’ll tell Raf everything. How you engineered this. How you’ve been pulling the strings from the start.”
Alexander doesn’t wait for the sentence to end—he seizes Casey’s shirt, slamming him into the wall.
“And what about revenge porn, Casey? You solicited those photos. You distributed them. I didn’t ask for them. I didn’t want them. I don’t traffic in smut.”
“You’re so delusional, you actually believe your own lies,” Casey snarls through clenched teeth. “But the truth will come out. People will hear about Raf and me. About Lili. About everything. And you? You’ll be the common thread. I cheated on my wife with her therapist’s former client, who used to date our neighbor, and behind all of it? You.”
Alexander lets out a short, performative laugh. “Say that again, slowly. It’s too convoluted to stick. No one will care.”
“I’m done,” Casey says, shoving him back. “Find someone else to be your remote-control lapdog.”
Then, without a moment’s hesitation or a flicker of self-doubt, he turns. He walks away, shedding the weight of fear, anger, and helplessness, done with it all. He doesn’t look back. The door closes behind him, and he steps into the courtyard, swallowed whole by the washed-out afternoon light.
Alexander crosses to the window, watching as Casey hurries down the stairs. “You might be done,” he murmurs, a shadow falling across his face.
“But I’m not.”