It’s been a while, hasn’t it? How have you been?
I haven’t written in a while, so forgive me if I sound like I’m warming up. Because I am.
Nothing much has changed with me. In fact, nothing has changed at all.
I’m still as ungrateful about my life as ever.
But you wouldn’t understand. How could you? My heartaches are much greater than yours.
I should’ve been a famous writer by now.
I should’ve been doing book readings all over the world, reading life-changing prose in front of dozens of middle-aged women. I should’ve gotten a Netflix deal; I should’ve spent last Wednesday complaining to my agent that they butchered my work by making all my white characters Asian and gay.
But instead, I’ve got good health, a nice home, a decent income and wonderful and happy loved ones. And worse yet, I have a bunch of Apple products.
Last Friday, as I was scrolling through my Instagram, I saw a post by Jude. His latest photo was of him topless, in the bathroom, six pack and broad shoulders exposed, asking people if he should get jaw implants. There were one thousand comments, even if his profile was private. I hadn’t seen him in ten years but he looked exactly the same, but just more buff, more modern.
We caught up:
“You have the new iPhone?” was the first thing he asked me.
“Yep, you?”
“Yep,” he said, satisfied. “I got the official case and sling bag and everything.”
He has an Aston now – the car I’ve always wanted – and he said there was this woman “we totally had to see”, and I asked him, “Where is she?” and he said, “New South Wales,” and I said, “What? That’s far,” but he ignored me for some time, and then finally, with determination, decided to say this: “We need to see her, you need to see her, like very soon. I’m worried about you, Dean.”
“Why are you worried about me?” I asked, but to my immense disappointment he said nothing.
During the drive we listened to endless podcasts about business and health, and in the last ten minutes Jude played End of the Beginning by Djo, and I said, “I keep hearing this song on TikTok,” and Jude just smiled and asked me for my thoughts on jaw implants.
The woman was staying in a modern AirBnb. I’d never seen someone who looked both eighteen and thirty-eight at the same time: she had no wrinkles and it didn’t look like she’d had any work done on her face, but something about her posture and her brows and her glare looked mature, jaded, tired, like she’d had to survive a lifetime of not being able to afford the latest iPhone. And of course she had a tattoo on her wrist. Her breasts were enormous.
She walked straight towards me and grabbed both of my hands.
To be continued.
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