May Twenty-Third

May twenty-third. Breathe. May twenty-third. Have to stay positive. May twenty-third was the day my life changed. I lost my job, I lost my apartment and now I don’t have anything holding me back from this god awful place. In the movies, life in New York is remarkable and awe inspiring. How finding true love is easier than baking a cake and how the buildings are to die for. Well, what they forget to tell you is how in those “to die for buildings”, you share a hallway with mice and the streets with garbage. No one ever mentions the stench of gas and cigarettes that clings to every corner of your nose, secondhand smoke dancing on your lungs till you can no longer breathe. And why would these big movie producers add that in? Why would anyone want to keep you from such a big tourist trap? When I first moved to New York I thought my life was going to be grand. I had my dream job, lived in my dream apartment and to make life all the more interesting, I was constantly on dates hoping to find my prince charming. However, my life as I knew it changed on that dreadful day, May twenty-third. I had received a phone call early that morning from my work saying that I needed to come in. Walking into the office, on my day off, I knew something bad was going to happen. The company’s profits began to tank when a rumor about the owner began to float around. As a result many of the employees lost their jobs, one of said employees was me. Losing my job was just the beginning, I could barely keep up with my rent because of how expensive it is to live in New York. With losing my job, I only had a week left of staying in my apartment. I had to call my parents and face the embarrassment of asking them to come home. And to put the cherry right on top, my mother’s opening line was “did you find your prince charming yet?”. After packing all of my belongings I arrived back in my childhood town, in the middle of nowhere in California. Population 25000. Looking at my parent’s front door all I could do was breathe. May twenty-third. Don’t cry. 

Moving back was better than I thought. My dad called a few of his buddies to help us carry in my belongings. I knew all of their faces except one. He was younger, rough around the edges, but could give someone a good night. Living in a small town, you know everyone, but when I asked people who he was I got the same response of “I dunno, he moved here a few months ago” and “he’s not much of a talker”. I have officially been jobless, living at my parent’s house and gone without a date for about three weeks now. Small town life is boring, there is nothing to do and nowhere to go. My mom set me up on a blind date just to get me out of the house. It is hard getting out because everyone knows what happened. They judge me and even if they don’t say it out loud, I can read their faces. However, getting out of the house is the perfect distraction from my misery. So I dolled myself up and left the house. When I arrived at the place I was meeting this date, I saw the guy who helped me move. I tried to say hi, but he disappeared into the crowd. Eventually, I found my date and we were able to sit and chat. He was a guy I had been friends with in high school, it was fun catching up with him, but I could not focus on what we were saying because of how sketchy the bar was. There were spider webs everywhere and hay barrels, it felt like we were in a barn. Later that evening, as my date was walking me to my door I saw that man again. He was on the street across from my house walking what looked like his dog. I did not think much of it and went inside. Days grow longer and my drive to start my life grows stronger. I eventually got a job in the cute local coffee shop. Business in the mornings were hectic, but through the many crowds of people, he was always there. He always ordered a black coffee and read yesterday’s paper. One day, on my break, I went up to him and started talking to him. He told me his name was Geoff. For someone who keeps to himself he opened up quite a bit. We exchanged numbers and I went back to my shift. 

That night Geoff called me, our conversation dragged out till the next morning. We did not say much, but it felt like I knew him. As the days went on I kept seeing him. He came by the store, ordered his coffee and would wait until I talked to him. My manager caught on and threatened to fire me if I didn’t do my job. Overhearing the threat, my coworker, and long time friend, was interested. He asked me what happened and when I told him the situation the color in his face drained. Without time to react, he dragged me into our storage room and told me that he would explain everything tonight. Later that night, Samuel, my friend/coworker, came over, he had told me the story of the man who doesn’t say much. Samuel said that one night a man was on a date with a girl, the girl was well known in our town. She was so intrigued and smitten by the man that no one and nothing would stop her from being with him. He took her home that night and no one saw her again. Samuel said that the cops searched far and wide in that man’s home, but the girl’s body was nowhere to be seen. His story seemed pretty far fetched and I had to ask him why he wanted to tell me a ghost story. Samuel insisted that the man in the story was Geoff and that I need to watch myself before I disappear as well. 

So just like that, I began to distance myself from Geoff and he noticed. What seemed like a harmless crush turned into harmful stalking. Everywhere I went, I saw Geoff. If I went to the store, he was there, my work, he was there, my house, he was there. I could not shake him and it was terrifying. My parent’s started to notice Geoff’s obsession with me, they were so worried that we got a restraining order against him. But that didn’t stop him. On a night I had to close the shop, Geoff was standing at my door. I tried to grab my phone and call 911, but before I knew it, Geoff had it. “Why do you hate me?”, he said as he tried to grab me. I tried to run, but my legs wouldn’t move and before I knew it, he knocked me out. I woke up in his house covered in blood. Looking to my right and left, I saw her. I saw the girl from the story, her body parts were everywhere. How could the cops not find her? I looked up at the clock hanging on the wall in front of me. May twenty-third. Before I saw him, he took a needle and injected something into my body. I watched as he cut me limb by limb and as the time went on, as did I. May twenty-third, was the day that changed my life.