Chapter Nine

Jason made a few phone calls throughout the day calling most of the friends he had who knew L. Their response in his plead to find her was not as favorable as he thought. “I can’t tell you man, it’s not my place.”

“I don’t think she exactly wants to be found right now.”

“It’s been almost a year now, shouldn’t you just forget her already dude?” Left and right nobody gave a slither of information leading to her. She had blocked him on Facebook and she never responded to any messages he had sent. L, now only a ghost, seemed fated to remain within his past.

“Damn it.” He set his phone down next to his now cold coffee and began organizing his receipts in chronological order. His red notebook laid out, used as a check ledger substitute, displayed every purchase made using his check card. The numbers from every receipt transferred into it using ink showed how everyday he had less and less money. Even the coffee he barely touched would dampen his assets further.

Jason reminisced flipping the pages of his worn out ledger. The ledger, showing income and expenses doubled as a timeline tracing every swipe of his four year old Visa card. The dates of every charge triggered a map inside his head tracing his and L’s uninspiring adventures. Repetitious visits to their favorite miniature golf course, weekends spent within the cinema, dinner at some second rate diner. These endeavors dwindled as dates in the checkbook grew closer to the present. Eventually they would barely spend any time together, two, maybe three times a week with one another. The time that was spent together was confined to Jason’s room where the two would continuously watch episodes of a sitcom or drama television show in which Jason would pirate off the web. Sometimes they would pull out the Game of Life to “spice things up.” Their relationship became repetitive and unromantic as Jason pushed for once upon a time.

Jason recalls their last visit that was just like any other time they spent together. Half the day gone due to L’s job, the night spent watching some television show they got into, and the night ending with either Jason driving her home or her heading back on her own. She hardly kissed or showed affection to him that night and the few preceding like it. Something Jason loved most about their visits, the kisses he would receive and give, but near the end of it all she would neither accept nor receive many. The lack of affection between their lips was ultimately due to Angelina. She expressed her disgust in the Angelina incident from time to time, but unknowingly to Jason, Angelina was the reason L had no desire to press her lips against his own. Angelina was brought up from time to time, and Jason had started to accept that no matter how angelic and faithful his behavior was, like a murderer, he would always be condemned to repent and apologize for the deed which by his own hand he was damned, and yet as repetitive as it was he was always hurt by this continuous persecution as if it were the first time he had committed the vile act. The pain of the rejection preceding a missed kiss would strike him as surprising every time. The dismissal she expressed, as if he were some server waiting on a table lacking the need of his assistance, killed him inside each time she turned her head dodging his attempt at his expression affection for her.

Jason wasn’t the only victim of persecution. Often, Jason  would search her phone for some kind of betrayal he had hoped not to discover. Jason didn’t always verbally express his distrust in L, but his actions screamed it as though he was shouting through a megaphone bursting her ears from the intensity within his voice. More often than not there wouldn’t be anything for him to discover, but sometimes he would confront her about some text message that concerned him. He didn’t make accusations but just him even searching her phone was enough evidence to show his lack of faith; it might as well have been an accusation to her face. Jason’s trust issues compelled him to take peeks in her phone throughout their relationship; some things caused distrust in him and even stronger messages seen inside her phone, the same phone he gave to her for their second Valentines Day, would spark wild thoughts in his head thinking she was up to no good behind his back, but honestly he couldn’t blame her if any of the thoughts he had were true. That feeling he gave her would push anyone away.

He flipped his old checkbook closed setting it aside near the crumpled and filed receipts then signaled over to a nearby waitress for a refill of coffee after taking a sip of disgust. The fresh coffee placed before him would need time to cool before consumption. Jason couldn’t handle hot coffee; his taste buds were still intact unlike religious drinkers. He dialed a few more numbers he thought would give him a lead on L’s location, but of course they were all in vane. Nobody would give Jason any information as though they were all sworn to silence. He gave up his search for the day, paid the tab on his coffee and made his way out the door.