Your Ex-Lover Is Dead

I had the reverse "Good Luck Chuck" effect going. Every girl he ever got with ended up meeting their respective matches...but not with him. Eventually he met a girl who fell for him, though. Then they made penguin porn.

I couldn't stop thinking about how much Dr. Morris's words meant, though. She was right. I went through a lot of bullshit to get where I was. Only a pussy would lose sight of that just because things were unraveling at the moment.

That was what I kept telling myself.

I was supposed to be over at Roshanda's an hour ago, but I wanted to stop in the city on the way to her neighborhood to deliver her favorite cupcakes. She always went apeshit over Sprinkles. Her favorite flavor was mocha.

What can I say? I'm whipped.

She lived in the hood, as she so eloquently put it. This would be how we hung out until we chose a proper time to live together. It was coming to that. We were beginning the next year of school in a few months with me as a junior and her as a sophomore, but we already thought we were fine enough to cohabitate.

After parking up the street, I dodged a lovey-dovey couple and rang the doorbell. She came down a few seconds later, her feet pounding the stairs loudly.

When she opened the door, my jaw dropped. She'd gotten a lovely new hairstyle. Before, it was black with blonde streaks. Now, it was magenta-y colored. All over. With her spiderbite piercings. And her new nose ring. And she was wearing booty shorts. And a ratty old Beatles tee.

Man, I hoped her parents weren't home.

"Hey, boo." She threw her arms around me and gave me kiss.

"I come bearing cupcakes for the gorgeous girl with the gorgeous hair." She smiled and took the box. "Thank you. You want one?"

I kicked the door behind me. "No, no. I don't want to ruin my body with that shit." I lifted up my shirt to show her the work I'd put in. She always rolled her eyes when I did that, but I know she liked it.

Roshanda's house was cozy but small. Her mom and dad were still together, so they lived here too. Just a simple house with a simple living room by the stairs, kitchen, and all the usual shit. When I was over before, we just chilled and had dinner with her folks. But I didn't hear any soft jazz emanating from the parents' room. I assumed they were gone.

"Are your parents gone?" I flopped down on the chair and kicked my feet up.

"Yeah," She was texting. Most likely Andi, her BFF. "They went to a concert in Millenium Park."

"Who?"

"Umm," She was distracted by texting, but then she set her phone down. "Esperanza Spalding."

"Really? She had a show?"

She settled into the couch with her box of cupcakes. "Yeah. You sure you don't want one?" She offered me a lemon coconut cupcake.

"I'm fine."

Silence. And then Roshanda asked, mouth full of frosting—no pun intended—"So what took you so long? You out there sticking your dick where it doesn't belong?"

I laughed. I knew she was joking. We always joked like that. I'd leave and yell, "See you later, honey! I'm off to go suck titties that ain't yours!"

"I uh..." Fuck. In cleansing my moral plate of Cherry's death, I forgot to come up with an excuse as to why I was late coming home. "I got stuck in traffic trying to get those cupcakes. You know how it is downtown."

She licked her lips. "With that concert and all."

Yes. Oh my God, even better ammo for my lie. "Most likely." I felt bad. But she connected the dots herself. I wanted to tell her, but now wasn't a good time. Besides, she made me so horny when I saw her that I just wanted to take care of what was in my pants first.

"When did you get your hair done?"

She put the box down. "Yesterday. Andi's friend did it for me. I love it." She started flipping it back and forth. Cock, calm down.

She walked over to me and sat in my lap. Then she began playing in my hair. Roshanda loved my hair. It was chin length by now, and it was totally brown, unlike before when I dyed it black, or black and blonde. Roshanda told me my hair was sexy and I should never go bald. I said I had no intention of looking like a cancer patient.

"I'm really sorry about Cherry, baby." She kissed my forehead. "Even if she ruined both of our relationships, she still didn't deserve that."

I grabbed Roshanda's hand. Her beautiful mocha-colored hands with her bright orange colored nails. "You don't have to apologize."

"But I know it's hurting you. I mean, you liked her."

"Yes, but it was so long ago. I kind of don't even want to talk about it."

She held her hands up, surrendering. "Okay."

I gave her this smirk of a look, and she giggled. "What?"

I pinched her shirt. "I love this shirt on you."

She looked down. "Thanks."

"George Harrison's head is on your nipple." I touched it and she snorted.

I reached out and grabbed a handful of her left breast. "That's where my head should be." I pulled her into me and started kissing her neck. That was her spot. And I took full advantage of it.

"Oh, Chris. What if I parents come back any minute?"

"When did the concert start?" I touched her spiderbite piercings as she mulled it over and then said, "Three hours ago."

"Maybe they got hungry. Maybe there was an encore. Maybe they ran into friends and they're having dinner afterwards. Maybe traffic is bad." I picked her up and made her straddle me, her perky breasts pressing into my shirt.

She buried her head in her hands, laughing. "You always do this to me. You suck so hard."

"I do. And you like it." I bit my tongue, amused at my own dirty joke. My hands caressed her warm skin under her shirt, then grabbed her plump backside, squeezing each cheek. We made out like rabbits, flickering tongues, biting lips, and rubbing crotches.

"You wanna play the game?" She asked, in a coy whisper. Even though I hadn't seen her in a week, I had a feeling she made it seem like it was more like a month.

"Duh!" I slowly sat up and then I took my shirt off. "Let's go to your room, though."

"The game" was simple. We'd 69 each other and try to see who could make the other cum first. Winner got a full ten more minutes of extra service. She always won, though. Once, we tied. Twice. We had to do a suck-off twice. We couldn't even declare a winner because our mouths and lips were so sore.

I loved Roshanda's room, filled with tons of artifacts disclosing her personality. Posters, nic-nacs, magazines, painted skulls. Her room had a certain charm to it. It was painted green, had a single window, and felt more like an attic sometimes. But I liked that. It was cozy and cute.

We were both fully undressed in a matter of minutes. Then we got on her bed and got into position.

"Go!" I yelled, and we were off. Her beautiful ass was in my face, and my tongue was painting her clit. She was so good at sucking my dick. Her mouth was a suction damn near. And her spiderbites actually made it feel even better. We were both moaning like crazy while we attempted to go for the gold.

I spread her lips open and started making out with her pussy, the stubble from a recent waxing growing back and tickling my chin. As I was doing the flicky-tongue thing that she loved, I felt her completely stop sucking to enjoy the flicky-tongue. That's when I knew I was going to win, because a few minutes later, her writhing around the covers and yelling my name, she had a ridiculous orgasm that made it hard for me to even control her.

"I win!" I held a defiant fist in the air. But Roshanda was too busy breathing heavily to say anything.

After a few minutes, she laughed and sat up. "First time in years," she joked, elbowing me while she started going down.

I should have enjoyed it. I should have enjoyed my dick in her mouth, her luscious lips sucking and licking. She was looking up at me in the most seductive way to see if I was enjoying it. She palmed and caressed my balls and then started sucking on them. She even let a little strand of saliva fall from the tip of her tongue onto my dick head the way I liked. It just looked hot to me.

But I didn't enjoy it.

This whole Cherry thing was ruining my day and my ability to ejaculate. I didn't like it. The last thing I needed was to make her think she was doing something wrong. Or that I was feeling guilty about anything, because the first thing she'd think of was that I was cheating.

Even she sensed it. "Babe," She got up. "I've been doing this for like five minutes, and you just went soft. What's the matter?" She ran a hand through my hair and I shook my head.

"Nothing. I guess I'm out of it. I don't know."

"You want me to keep going?"

"No. Just quit," I relented, inching off her bed to put my boxers back on. "It's fine. I think I'm just really tired."

She folded her arms. "Being tired never kept a guy from enjoying a dick suck."

She had a point. Damn her.

"Can we just, I don't know..." I got back in the bed with her and held her, "Cuddle?"

She gave me the weirdest look. "You'd rather cuddle than let me suck your dick?"

In some cultures, most girls would like this reasoning. But not my girlfriend. Oh, no. She actually thought like a guy sometimes.

I looked around and then nodded. "Yes."

Roshanda shrugged. "Whatever." She put her t-shirt back on and got under the covers with me. "I'll find out what's bothering you soon enough." Roshanda wiped her mouth with her shirt and then grabbed a scrunchie to put her hair up.

There was a considerable silence before I asked, "Have you been feeling okay lately?"

"Umm," she began, obviously confused. "Yes. Why?"

"Like, you haven't experienced any near-death shit?"

She sat up, propping her up with her elbow, head resting on her hand. "Chris, baby, what are you getting at?"

"Just answer the question."

"No."

"Have you been feeling ill?"

". . .No. I mean, I had a cold a few weeks ago, but—wait a minute, why are you asking me all this?"

"I'm just trying to make sure you're okay."

"But you never ask me any of this. You're really starting to freak me the hell out. What, do you think I'm fucking around on you?"

"No!" Shit. "I don't! I swear."

Roshanda added, "Because if you think I would do that because of what happened with us when I was still with Roy, I understand, but you gotta believe me, I would never cheat on you."

"I know you wouldn't."

"So then why did you ask me that stuff?"

I couldn't think of a reason. What was I gonna say, 'I'm worried because I think you might die if you keep dating me?'

"Chris, are you being unfaithful to me?"

FUUUUUUUCK.

"No, baby." I grabbed her and held her close to me. "I've never cheated on anyone. And I would never cheat on you."

She jerked away from me. "Well, there's a first time for everything. I mean, you were late coming to my house, you didn't wanna talk about the whole Cherry thing, and now you're asking if I'm sick?"

When she put all that shit together, it definitely looked like that. Logical sensible Christopher would just tell her the truth. But in light of her recent putting-two-and-two-togethers, adding that would just make me look like a fucking idiot.

"I'm paranoid sometimes. I just worry about you because I care so much."

She looked at me, half-heartbroken, half-pissed. Then, she just turned off the light. "Good night, Christopher."

I knew she was mad. She never called me by my full name. Ever.

The next morning, I woke up to what looked like Roshanda coughing up blood.

"Oh my God! Roshanda!" I jerked out of my sleep and propped her up so I could examine her, but she pushed me away and looked at me like I was insane.

"Chris! What the actual fuck?"

I looked through my sleepy eyes. She was drinking fruit punch, and she choked a little. Nothing to act crazy over.

"You ruined my sheets," she huffed, setting her glass down and getting up to rip the comforter off of the bed.

"I'm sorry." I said to her back as she walked away.

Nice going, Chris. Very nice going.

Roshanda's parents still weren't back yet. They'd left her message on her phone saying they'd spent the night over at a friend's house drinking so they wouldn't have to drive back home. We had plans to go down to Wicker Park and snag a few records from Reckless, our new favorite place in Wicker Park. We always bought a record or something equally cool, got coffee from Caribou, went thrifting, and hung out with a few of my friends until nighttime, when we'd hit up the bars and then find a sweet spot to smoke weed before leaving.

Today was decidedly different. Due to my idioticness of last night, she was a bit distant. Add that to a very hot day in the Windy City, and you knew shit would not end well.

The wind was blowing her skirt up Marilyn-style, so I stayed close behind to make sure I didn't see her green thong.

"Gotta be careful about these things," I cautioned, walking across the street. She didn't even chuckle.

I was pretty sure she'd told Andi about what happened and they had sharpened their pitchforks. I was expecting her to hate me the next time she saw me. It sucked, because me and Andi were actually great friends.

I opened the door for Roshanda and she went straight for the vinyls while I decided to give her some space and look through the movies. Sometimes, they had really cheap deals that I wouldn't even find on Amazon.

All I had to do was act normal. Today was a day like any other. I would probably walk out with some vinyl, enjoy a nice iced coffee, and find some hipster clothes that would be to both my and Roshanda's liking.

After deciding the movies had nothing going for them, I thumbed through a few vinyls. Roshanda was talking to one of her friends by the alternative section. I was stalling between the Clash or the Sex Pistols in the punk section.

A few minutes of thinking and I made my decision. I carried my Sex Pistols vinyl over to the counter. No one was there at the moment. I was listening to the new Jack White playing in the store while I waited for someone to ring me up.

Finally, someone came. "Hello, how are y—"

Oh fuck. This was not happening.

It was Ashleigh's best friend Raquel Winters. Probably the only girl I ever met with dreads. Who was white. She always colored them differently. I guess this week, they were blue.

When Ashleigh died, even though it wasn't my fault, she was fully and 100 percent convinced that it was a cover-up. No one could tell her that, despite the coroner ruling her death as part of a pre-existing condition. She thought someone was covering for me.

She outright hated my guts. Part of me thought she hated me because she secretly wanted me, and when her friend got me instead, she just had to direct her rage somewhere. I was nothing but nice to her, but she was the queen of snark whenever we were in each other's presence.

And here she was, working in Reckless Records of all places. Last I heard, she'd moved to Portland to be with all the other dogged hipsters. After she damn near ran me and my dad away from our old town because she'd turned everyone against us, I never thought I'd have to deal with her again.

She instantly frowned at me. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

I countered, "What the fuck are YOU doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in Oregon?"

"If the manager wasn't here right now, I'd kick you the fuck out."

"You have no right to kick me out of a record store that you don't even fucking own. Now ring me up so I can get on with my life."

"Wish I could say the same for Ash."

I looked down and sighed. Then, I leaned into the counter. "I did not kill her. And you know this."

She shook her head. "No. That's bullshit. You were right there. You fucking did it. And you got away with it."

At that moment, Rashonda walked over. "What you got there, Chris?"

I showed her the album. Raquel folded her arms. "Is this your new girlfriend?"

She looked up. But she knew Raquel wasn't friendly, so she didn't say anything.

"You definitely have a type."

"Stop it," I warned, practically throwing the vinyl at her. "Ring me up."

"A type?" Rashonda shot her the "bitch back up" look. "What are you getting at?"

"Just be careful. This one," She pointed to me with her ringer-upper-thingy, "He likes to kill girls and then run away."

"I DIDN'T FUCKING KILL HER, YOU BITCH!"

"OTTO! GET THIS ASSHOLE OUT OF MY STORE! HE'S THREATENING ME!"

Rashonda yelled at her, "DON'T YOU FUCKING CALL MY BOYFRIEND AN ASSHOLE, YOU CUNT!"

Raquel countered, "IF YOU HAD ANY SENSE, YOU'D LEAVE HIM BEFORE YOU END UP DEAD, JUST LIKE THE REST OF THEM!"

Everyone in Reckless was staring at us, and I could feel my chest tightening. We didn't need to wait to be thrown out. I grabbed Roshanda, who was still yelling at Raquel, and left the store minus my sanity and a very sought after Sex Pistols record.

I couldn't even become angry. I was too busy trying my hardest to breathe. Everything was folding in on me, it seemed. I was staggering around like I was drunk, but I felt Roshanda's hands try to steady me. I fell down in an alley and started grabbing at my chest, hiding under my white t-shirt which was accumulating sweat from the heat and from my freaking out.

"Sweetie...." I heard Roshanda's voice, but I was losing it. She started administering the panic attack protocol, but everything went dark before I had a chance to respond.