Chapter 12 - The Bitter Taste of Ash: Everett’s Descent into the Land of the Forgotten
The five thousand dollars was disappearing faster than Everett’s dignity.
He sat on the edge of a plastic chair in a laundromat in Union City,
watching his last three pairs of designer socks spin in a machine that smelled of cheap bleach and old sweat.
His tuxedo,
once the symbol of his status,
was folded in a cardboard box beside him,
unsellable because of the wine stains and the stench of his own failure.
Every time someone walked through the door,
he flinched,
expecting a process server or a reporter,
but the people here didn't care about the fallen king of Manhattan.
To them,
he was just another middle-aged man with haunted eyes and a suit that cost more than their cars,
falling apart at the seams.
He pulled out his phone,
the battery at four percent,
and scrolled through the news.
The image of me at the podium,
looking radiant and untouchable,
seemed to mock him from the small,
cracked screen.
"She’s a monster,"
he whispered to the empty air,
the sound of his own voice startling him.
"She set me up."
But even as he said it,
a memory flickered in his mind—a moment from five years ago.
He had been drunk after a successful merger,
and he had told me,
with a sneer,
that I should be grateful he even let me sit at the table with him.
He remembered how I had just looked at him,
my expression unreadable,
and said,
"The table is only as strong as the floor it stands on,
Everett."
He hadn't understood then.
He understood now.
He was the table,
and I was the floor,
the foundation,
and the very earth beneath it.
He checked the balance on the prepaid card I had given him.
Two thousand,
four hundred,
and twelve dollars left.
The motel bill was due tomorrow.
The taxi rides had eaten into his reserves.
He had tried to call his old friends,
the men he had golfed with in the Hamptons,
the men who had toasted his "genius" just weeks ago.
One had hung up immediately.
Another had laughed and told him to "call back when you’re not a federal liability."
The third,
his closest friend,
had simply said,
"Evelyn called us all,
Everett."
"She told us that anyone who helps you will lose their contracts with Blackstone."
"It’s not personal,"
"it’s just business."
Everett felt a cold,
hollow pit open in his stomach.
I wasn't just taking his money;
I was erasing his existence from the social fabric of the city.
He was being ghosted by an entire class of people.
He stood up as the dryer buzzed,
pulling out his warm,
shrunken socks.
He tried to put one on,
but his fingers were shaking so much he couldn't even catch his heel.
He slumped back onto the chair,
burying his face in his hands,
and let out a jagged,
ugly sob.
In that moment,
he would have given anything to go back to that gala,
to pick up the ring he had thrown,
to beg for my forgiveness.
But he knew me.
He knew that once I made a decision,
it was as final as a death sentence.
He wasn't just losing a wife;
he was losing the only person who had ever truly protected him from himself.
He looked at the box containing his tuxedo and realized he had nothing left to sell.
The five thousand dollars wasn't a gift;
it was a countdown.
And when it reached zero,
he would simply vanish,
May you like
a ghost in designer rags,
haunting the streets of a city that had already forgotten his name.
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