Three months had passed, and Alexander both liked and loathed being on his own. On one hand, there was a strange freedom in wasting hours doom-scrolling or binge-watching Stranger Things, Black Mirror, and grim documentaries without anyone to judge or guilt him into chores he wasn't ready to do. Yet, another part of him hated that this same freedom gave him the perfect excuse to vanish into isolation whenever he wasn't on shift.
It wasn't the same as living with his parents or his older brother, Nick who had replaced him with a girlfriend and a rambunctious orange cat. Still, he understood he couldn't keep dragging everyone down with him forever. If he wanted to live a life of minimum effort, he had to commit to it—and that meant accepting the loneliness that came with it.
He'd stopped caring about appearances. Most days he didn't even bother brushing his hair or changing out of his comfort clothes: boxer briefs and a rumpled T-shirt. What was the point? It wasn't like he was expecting company, aside from the twins, his work friend Dave, or the half-hearted situationship that was slowly falling apart. Rick barely came around anymore, and Alexander found it hard to care.
Sometimes he wondered if Rick only stopped by to steal his Wi-Fi and raid his fridge. It would've suited Alexander just fine if the spark between them hadn't already met an untimely death.
"Do you still like me?"
"Duh."
Duh? The word stung. How could Rick act like it was obvious when they barely spoke outside the sheets?
"You still like me?" Rick echoed as though it mattered.
"...duh."
It wasn't really true anymore, but what else could he say?
After Rick left, a hollow stillness filled the room. Alexander didn't feel angry or heartbroken, just empty. When that emptiness crept in, he reached for his phone, the little hand-held sanctuary that somehow always knew how to stir his anxiety. It fed into his morbid curiosities, not caring that he now lived alone.
A video short played after a swipe of his finger. A true crime piece that pulled at his interest despite his better judgement. A woman with bottle-dyed purple hair, her lips painted the color of bruised plums, spoke over a haunting piano track.
"Twenty-six-year-old Roscoe Pierce was living in Charlotte, North Carolina, when he was brutally murdered in his best friend Timothy Fisher's apartment in 1998."
The screen shifted to photographs, and Alexander's stomach turned. The victim was a jock and something straight out of Hitler's wet dream. Shaggy blond hair, baby-blues, a chiseled jawline, perfect teeth, broad in every sense of the word. He was the archetype of every guy who ever made Alexander feel small. The kind who probably shoved heads into toilets for kicks.
Maybe that was why he was killed, Alexander thought before catching himself. No. Don't think that way. Have some respect for the dead. You're an ethical true crime consumer.
"People believe Timothy's motive was athletic rivalry, but others think that perhaps there was an underlying relationship going on between them and Roscoe planned to out them both, but that's merely speculation because of..."
Alexander paused. Then rewound.
Charlotte, North Carolina.
No way.
That was his city. The algorithm had outdone itself this time. But it wasn't just that-something else made his blood run cold. When he paused at just the right frame, a sign flickered on-screen. A dated complex with a name he knew all too well: Luxe Living.
Alexander froze. A chill crept up the back of his neck.
"Calm the fuck down, algorithm," he muttered, but his voice shook anyway.