him on the bed and looked at all the missed calls and texts he missed. Most of them were from Abby. Kyle did not want to talk to her. He no longer trusted himself to feign civility towards her over the phone. But he realized that if he kept avoiding her, she might start figuring out he was on to her. He didn’t want her to suspect anything. He wanted to catch her red-handed in the act. Exerting a great deal of self-control, Kyle dialed his cheating girlfriend’s cellphone that morning.
Abby was in the middle of ringing a book purchase at the bookstore when her phone buzzed. She answered it immediately when she saw it was Kyle. “Hey, honey. Where were you? I’ve been calling you all morning.”
Fucking liar. Like you give a shit whether I live or die. Kyle wanted to scream those words at her. Instead, he counted to ten in his head and forced a smile on his voice.
“I know. I’m sorry. I went out with some friends last night, had too much to drink, and crashed. I just woke up and saw all of your calls and texts.”
“Are you alright?” Abby asked.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Kyle snapped, raising his voice. Realizing that he was giving away his anger, Kyle drew a long breath and reigned in his tone. “I just have a little headache. That’s all,” he added in a calmer, more subdued voice.
Abby was sensing Kyle was hiding something. He was being invasive and snappy, just like during their last call. Abby realized he wasn’t going to tell her anything no matter how much she pried. So she decided to stop harassing him with her questions.
“Okay, then,” Abby replied with resignation in her voice. “Take care of yourself. I hope you feel better.”
“Thanks.”
“Listen, I have to go. I’m in the middle of my shift, and the store is really busy. Talk to you later?”
“Sure.”
Abby wanted to say something else, but Kyle didn’t give her a chance. He disconnected the call as soon as the word ‘sure’ came out of his mouth.
Abby removed the phone from her ear and stared at the screen, surprised that Kyle ended the call so abruptly. After putting the phone away, Abby continued to wait on her customers. But she couldn’t get the phone conversation with Kyle out of her mind. It bugged her how cold and distant her boyfriend sounded.
She also noticed he hung up without saying ‘I love you’ to her. Again. When they were apart in the past, they’d talk for hours on the phone and video chat often. During this trip, she could barely get a word out of him. He also raised his voice at her, something Kyle rarely did.
Still, it did not cross Abby’s mind that Kyle knew about her affair, and that was the reason he was acting the way he was. Abby blamed Kyle’s attitude on him being hung over and shrugged it off.
After hanging up on Abby, Kyle managed to get off his bed, shower and change his clothes. The headaches and the nausea had subsided, but Kyle decided to spend the rest of the day alone in his room. He was sick of people asking what was wrong with him. He just wanted to be alone.
Later in the day, his mother brought him some brunch, but Kyle barely touched it. He decided to spend the rest of the day sitting in front of his computer monitoring the location of Abby’s phone. He already knew Abby was cheating on him. But he figured that if he kept monitoring her, perhaps he could find some clues as to who she was cheating on him with.
While he waited for Abby to finish her shift at the bookstore, Kyle began to plot his revenge. He thought about pummeling the guy’s face to pieces, but doing that didn’t satisfy him anymore. Then the thought of shooting the guy in the face sneaked into his head. Initially, the thought disturbed Kyle a lot. He was not a violent person and was most definitely not a killer. But the more he thought about taking the guy out, the more he liked it. The idea of shooting the guy in the face and having Abby watch him do it made him happy.
Kyle remembered there was a handgun