Page 51 of The Love Destroyers

On Tuesday, I go to the pet store and spend an obscene amount of money on Shadow, then to the veterinarian, where I spend more money on her, only to be told she’s in perfect health despite having lived in a wall for an indeterminate amount of time.

I keep thinking about Seamus.

He’s almost certainly not taking care of himself, right?

I tell myself Chuck is like Martha Stewart if she were nice. He’ll choke Seamus with kindness and tea and pillows. It’s notmyjob to make a man take care of himself.

On Wednesday night, I send food over to his apartment. There’s no response, although I get notified that the food was left with them. So I cave in the early evening and text him:

Are you dead?

No response.

About an hour later, I write,

I’m going to assume you’re dead if you don’t respond in the next half hour. If you’re dead, you definitely won’t mind if I fill your flask with Midori.

When there’s no response to that, I start to really worry.

I’d thought the Midori threat was a slam-dunk. That flask has never tasted anything but the very best whiskey.

Has he fallen and hit his head again?

Is he still planning to help with Jeffrey and Ellie when he can’t answer a simple text message?

Do I even want him to?

Part of me wants to press pause on this whole insane plan. I don’t want to give Jeffrey the opportunity to take anything else from me, if things go wrong. At the same time, I don’t want to let him get away with it. If he does, he’ll bamboozle someone else. Who knows how many lives he’s already ruined, while maintaining his own reputation?

I want him to go down, and I want to be part of it. But my mind keeps wandering from the Jeffrey-Ellie problem to Seamus. I don’t like that he’s unwell. I hate the memory of him lying helpless on that carpet…

“You’reverytense,” my mother comments to me over dinner. Rosie and Anthony are with us, so tonight my mother’s chef, who normally makes meal deliveries for us twice a week, is actually working in the kitchen. It felt strange to walk past the kitchen earlier and see—and smell—it in use. Almost as if the house were becoming real in a way it has never been before.

“No, I’m not.”

“Do you normally keep cats on leash while you’re eating dinner?” Rosie asks with a sparkle in her eyes.

Okay, fine. I may be the slightest bit tense.

I’ve been walking Shadow around on a leash all day because I’m worried she’ll disappear into the walls again. The consensus online is that cats will keep coming back if you feed them well, so I gave her a tin can of imported tuna for dinner.

I might not have wanted a cat, but I admire Shadow’s hustle. She managed to climb into the walls of this house, for goodness’s sake. Doesn’t that kind of scrappiness deserve a reward?

I hate the thought of her being alone again, cold and skinny and frightened. Those are feelings I never want anyone to have in this house again.

“Well?” my mother presses.

“Mother, you almost killed Rosie’s brother the other day, and we found out the ghost living in Father’s study was a cat. It’s been quite a week.”

“It’s okay,” Rosie says after she finishes making orgasmic noises while eating a piece of ravioli. From the way my brother’s looking at her, I’m glad they’re not planning on staying the night. “Seamus has a hard head. Besides, he told me yesterday that he and Claire’s dad were having lunch with some ladies, so I’m guessing he feels fine.”

“Oh,” I say, trying not to sound like I give a shit. I shouldn’t. I knew he was an incurable flirt from the moment I met him, not to mention a few choice remarks Rosie has dropped. She’s also told me that he can get self-destructive when he’s upset. It’s mortifying to consider the possibility that she may have been low-key warning me off.

Sure, Seamus made a big deal about wanting to take care of Shadow together, but that was probably mostly bullshit. Or the ravings of a concussion-blasted mind. “Well…that’s good. I’m glad he’s eating.”

“Which ladies?” my mother asks sharply, setting her fork down with a clank against the side of her porcelain dish. Her eyebrows are as knit together as they’ll go.

“I don’t know,” Rosie says carelessly. “Some women they met at the hospital after dropping off flowers. Shay’s always befriending people everywhere.”

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