FATE

If I Stayed This Story Might Have a Happier Ending—

The dead girlfriend story. Abbreviated form

I can’t call her my girlfriend. At the time of her death she had a boyfriend who wasn’t me. There’s some people who think I know more about it than I do. Some people thought I was responsible. I was the last person to see her alive. But the part that still eats at me is if I did things different this story might not exist.

The story begins 12 years ago.

I drove to visit my friend Marco and his wife Shannon in San Diego. I rang the doorbell and was greeted by his wife and another beautiful woman. She had blonde hair, blue eyes, and was built like a swimsuit model. When our eyes met there was instant chemistry.

“Hogan this is Samantha, you guys have tons in common. Talk. We’re getting ready upstairs,” was our introduction from Shannon. We chit-chatted a bit. Then Ryder came downstairs and he and I went outside to smoke a cigarette.

“So what’s her deal?” I asked. His face soured. “Oh, yeah. Her. She comes down all the time to bitch about whatever guy she’s dating. Then she smokes all our weed, drinks our booze and stays a few days more. She was born without the ability to smile. You can fuck her but don’t keep her around for five years like you did your ex-wife…”

“Wait, did you say born without the ability to smile?” I asked.

“Yeah, she had to have something like nine surgeries and couldn’t smile until the 4th grade. That’s why she looks kinda weird.”

“Looks alright to me.”

There was interest before but now I was super intrigued. Born without the ability to smile. That meant isolation and torment as a child but now she was attractive. Also, interesting yet down to earth . What a backstory I thought to myself.

On the car ride to dinner we discovered that we did have a lot in common. We were both former pharmacy techs. They caught us doing things that we weren’t supposed to. Neither of us got fired, we were just told to leave and not come back. We both loved our little brown Chihuahuas and took them everywhere with us.

We both bought things and sold them for a little more (drugs). Her specialty was party drugs she bought from the Dead Family (Grateful). And I still had access to pharma items. We talked business and figured out who we knew in common.

Nothing happened that weekend. She went her way and I went mine. We exchanged numbers and met up on occasion when one of us needed something the other had. She got a boyfriend, I got a girlfriend.

We were friendly and flirty with one another. Her flirtatiousness was to ensure favorable pricing at the time. And she got it. I still liked her. But she loved Joe.

There was no reason for me to dislike Joe. He treated Samantha well and was fine with his girlfriend meeting another dude for business purposes. I never met Joe face to face until three days after her passing…

The years passed and I had moved back to the San Fernando Valley with my girlfriend. The new girlfriend was nice, sweet, and in love with me. But I still couldn’t get Samantha off my mind. The more I got to know her, the more I wanted to be with her.

The reality was Samantha loved Joe and there were plenty of other available women in Los Angeles for me to be with.

I was working in Venice a few blocks from where Samantha lived. I was all but retired from my side job as an unlicensed pharmacist. While I was scaling down my illicit dealings she was moving up in the underworld.

Samantha was the only person I still supplied. She knew I had access to anything pharmaceutical and I could never say no to her…

“No” would be the last word I would ever say to her.

We would meet once a week at that point. We had progressed as business associates to friends. From parking lots to restaurants. Flirty, but platonic.

One day she came storming into the bar we were meeting up at looking like an overstuffed laundry hamper. Which was weird because she was usually flawless.

“I’ve had it with that motherfucker!”

“Who, Joe?” I asked.

“Yeah! Do you know what he did?!?”

This was new. It was the first time she had said anything negative about the beloved-by-all Joe. So she told me everything. I would later find out I was the only person she confided in. To this day I hold secrets for Samantha no one bothered asking me — except Joe after she passed.

Boyfriend Joe grew weed. When he met Samantha he was successful at it. But as time went on he had to find a new location for the grow that was not as ideal as the original one. The ventilation was inadequate at the new place so he needed a better AC unit that cost ten grand.

He was broke at that point so he asked her for the money. She had lent him 3 grand the week before to fix his jeep. On top of the 10k he owed her from the new location the grow relocated too. He was driving for Uber to make his half of rent.

This was not what she signed up for. She was over it. But was she over him and was that my cue?

Samantha’s biggest problem with him was that it had been seven years and there was no ring on her finger. A few months before she confronted him about it. He did the typical “I’m planning to but I’m waiting for blah blah blah excuses excuses.” She told him he had till the end of the year to shit or get off the pot. Six months after her ultimatum he was still sitting around her place smoking weed and she still wasn’t engaged.

After that day I started seeing more of Samantha. Lunch turned into dinner, dinner became dinner and drinks, and then the club afterwards. Meanwhile our respective partners sat at home telling themselves they were being paranoid. We were both upfront about seeing each other as physically there was nothing going on. I had to work late, she had to do business. Both were half-truths.

My girlfriend accused me of emotional cheating on her with Samantha. Which it was. Samantha wasn’t the only reason I left her. But it definitely was a component. At the same time I could feel Samantha’s feelings for me changing. She told me more and more personal things. She’d get annoyed if I mentioned other women.

One day she scolded Joe “Why can’t you be more like Hogan?” When she told me what happened I cringed.

“That’s a pretty fucked up thing to tell your boyfriend.” I said. I told her I’d have dumped her right then if I was him. Talk about a red flag.

I had moved out from the house I was renting with my ex-girlfriend. I had stopped complaining about my ex-girlfriend. I was sick of listening to her bitching about Joe. Time to play my cards and try to force her hand.

At our normal restaurant after ordering I exhaled, took her hands, and said, “You know Samantha — we’ve known each other for about seven years now. I thought you might be someone I wanted to get to know better. Now that I know you better I want to be with you. I can’t listen to you complain about this guy who’s had seven years to give you what you want. He’s not going to give you what you want. We both want the same thing. You deserve it more than any woman I’ve ever met. We deserve it.”

“When you are ready to leave him, and I’m not rushing you — but, when and if the time comes that you’re ready for you and I to be us, I promise within six months you will have your ring. Six months later will be the wedding. Then six months after that we’ll have our house. And at some point after that our first child will be born. And that’s a promise.” I cleared my hands like a poker dealer while looking her in the eyes.

She had a terrified look on her face like I had proposed out of the blue, which I essentially had. Her response came 10 seconds later.

“I gotta go.” And she sprinted back to her car.

I sighed. It went better than I expected. I was bracing for a, “Whoa dude. Slow your roll. You got the wrong idea…”

We went the ‘forget that it ever happened’ route. At least she shut up about Joe. We held hands. Our hugs goodbye went from friend hugs to bodies pressed together, holding each other until my erection was going to pop above my pants waistline.

About a month after I made my pitch she floored me one day when she came into our usual restaurant and grabbed my hands.

“Ok! I’m ready!” She sang with her million dollar smile.

“Sure. Ready for…”

“Everything you said and whatever might come after.”

Right. That. Dope.

We kissed. The passion between us made the other diners speculative.

“She’s either pregnant or not pregnant.”

“Nah, she kicked him out and is taking him back and now they don’t have to sell the house.”

“I told you they weren’t brother and sister.”

“Dude must’ve landed a million dollar deal with China.”

“More like china white. Hey! Get a room you guys!”

And we did. It was incredible. I knew she had a body but it looked even better without clothes. Seven years of sexual tension between us released. I thought it was the beginning of a new chapter in my life. But I would have never guessed in a million years that it was going to turn into a horror story.

That was the first and last time we ever slept together and we didn’t even get to sleep together.

Two months later she still hadn’t broken up with him. We still met up but I was beginning to wonder if she wanted to be with me or that was just a roll in the hay.

“If you had a change of heart, it’s fine. I’d appreciate it if you’d communicate that to me.” I told her in a blatant, annoyed tone.

“No, no. I meant what I said. But I’ve been with him for seven years. He’s like my best friend. Breaking up means me throwing him out. Not that he doesn’t deserve it. I know this isn’t fair for you. I promise to make it up to you. When he gets back from his parents after Christmas is when I’ll do it. I plan on bringing in 2016 with you and you better plan on the same.”

I sighed and while lost in her eyes stated, “I said take your time and I meant it. I understand. You’re worth the wait.”

A few days before Christmas I got a text.

“No one’s here, come over!”

I said I couldn’t that night but I was heading in her direction tomorrow night and asked if she would be around then. She would. I went to her place for the first time since our first date. When I got there things were not as I expected.

It seemed like she was drunk. But she wasn’t. She was slurring words, dropping things, and looking like she was going to fall over any second. While I was there I was going to get some Xanax off her, but looking at her she might have eaten the entire bag of bars herself.

“You ok? How many bars have you eaten?”

“Jus one.”

Samantha was a tank. I’d seen her eat eight Oxycodone pills, drink five beers, and swallow three Xanax bars. She could still do each of the field sobriety tests at once so something was definitely up. There was no point grilling her. We hung out, smoked a joint, and she looked even more like she was about to fall over.

I have two regrets in life. Not giving my father the last hit of weed he requested before going into the surgery he wouldn’t wake up from. The second was the only time I said no to Samantha.

“Stay with me.”

I wanted to. I really, really wanted to. But I had friends in Long Beach who I had already promised a four am ride to LAX. But the main reason was that she was still with him. Was she going to leave him?

I can’t say but in my heart I think so. All her friends thought they were perfect for each other. Breaking up with him was going to be an unpopular decision. There was no way to do it without looking like a total asshole. Especially if she was leaving him for another guy. But there’s a possibility she wasn’t going to leave him. NONE of her friends knew about us or had even heard her mention me. NONE knew of the impending supposed break up.

“I would love to. But I can’t. That’s still his bed.”

With that I may have sealed her fate. She pleaded with me but I pointed out that she was still living with her boyfriend.

“Okay, I get it.”

Two days later it was Christmas. Being Jewish, it meant very little except a day off, light traffic, and Chinese take out for dinner. I woke up at 1pm. When I looked at my phone I paused for a moment.

22 missed calls. 18 new texts. Huh. Check the texts. “Call Shauna. You need to call Shauna as soon as you see this. Call me, please.” I called Shauna. “Hi.”

“Hogan, I’m so sorry. But she’s gone.”

Gone? What do you mean gone? Where did she go? She’s at her Dad’s house right?

“No. She’s dead.” As Shauna told me what she knew I was in shock, disbelief, denial. This had to be a mistake. There would be no time to process.

There was a loud knock at the door an hour later. LAPD. They had questions. Awesome.

After two back-to-back 8 hour interrogations I told them every little detail I knew. At the insistence of my lawyer they reluctantly let me go. But I had one more interrogation that I needed to attend to prove my innocence to the public. My phone rang. It was an area code belonging to Detroit. I knew this was coming.

“Yo Hogan, this is Joe. Samantha’s boyfriend.”

You wouldn’t still be if she was alive you poor sap. “I know who you are.”

“We need to have a talk.”

More like the most uncomfortable Q&A session in history I thought to myself.

“Sure. When?”

“Tomorrow. Do you know where I live?” An excellent example of a loaded question.

“I do.”

“Can you be here at nine?”

“I’ll see you then.”

That night I thought long and hard about how to play it. I would have liked to have told him the truth. But this wasn’t for me. This wasn’t for him. I was doing this for Samantha and knew exactly what she would have wanted me to do…

DENY EVERYTHING.

I mentally prepared myself to meet Joe after seven years. I wasn’t worried. The only things I ever heard about the guy were nice things. If he wanted to deck me, so be it. I would take the punch like a man.

As I pulled up to his pad he was waiting outside. The plan was to go to the local watering hole. I expected to answer a bunch of questions untruthfully and listen to his tale of woe.

“So were you fucking my girl or what?”

A straight shooter. I respected that. I had mentally prepared for 50 different scenarios that day and this was one of them. I looked him dead in the eyes and said.

“No.”

“Then how come when I leave town an hour later she texts you to come over? I mean I know you guys do a lot of business together so I asked her why she didn’t invite you over to the house. She said ‘Oh, Hogan’s shady. I would never let him know where I live,’ so judging by the texts I see you came by. Was that your first time at our place?”

“No.” Thank god he kept talking after asking the first question.

“Had you ever been in the bedroom?”

“No.” P-p-p-pokerface p-p-p-pokerface. We were at the bar for two hours. He grilled me and filled in some holes I had. The sex stuff the cops were talking about was due to the fact that she had her toys out, and I’d find out from Shannon she had a lot of toys. So she got herself off after I turned her down. Guilt for not honoring her request coursed through my veins. All the weird food questions asked were due to the pizza in the microwave. Samantha never ate more than 2 pieces at a time, yet there were 4 in the microwave. Joe grilled me on that one hard and repeatedly. There was no pizza while I was there. There was no offer of pizza. I went to her house straight from a restaurant. And that was the truth.

At the end I said, “Look, I’m a licensed lifeguard and trained as a paramedic. If any friend of mine keeled over in front of me, regardless of the legality of our situation, I would have rendered CPR and called 911. Regardless of what we were doing. I cared about Samantha and already miss her. But I’ve told you everything I know that happened that night. I was not there when whatever happened happened.”

He seemed satisfied. Still tore the fuck up on the inside but I hoped to have provided a little closure. Hearing him talk about their relationship gave me an upset stomach. Then he asked his final question.

“Was she happy with me?”

I was not expecting that. The question caught me off-guard. As I fumbled to find the right words he realized that everything I had told him was bullshit and his face sunk. So did I tell him the truth? No!

DENY EVERYTHING!

“Of course she was.”

Her autopsy came back a few weeks later. She had a massive seizure. She told me months before that she’d had one. She didn’t go to the hospital because she didn’t want to lose her license as that was the result when it happened when she was 19. So now everyone knew I didn’t kill her. They still thought I was withholding information. Which I was but the information was none of their business and she would have told them if she wanted them to know.

There was no official funeral. Or I wasn’t invited. I have no idea if she’s buried or cremated nor do I know where her final resting place is.

Her friends and family view me as a homewrecker that tried to interfere with the happy couple. Her parents refused to speak with me even when I offered information that only I know. (I don’t know what I was going to tell them. What I really wanted was acknowledgment of my existence for my own selfish reason.)

For the next 6 months I cried at least once a day. That made me question whether I should be crying. What was she to me? Bride-to-be or chick that cheated on her boyfriend with me? I would never know. I wanted closure. I found heroin. It wasn’t closure but it made the lack of it not seem as bad. I stopped working, started doing copious amounts of drugs. Got evicted, lost my car, wound up homeless, the whole nine. As time went on I realized I needed to stop looking for closure. There was only one person who could provide closure and she died.

Around 18 months ago I detoxed for the last time. No rehab. No opiate substitutes. There was only sweat, pain, and vomit. I got my shit together enough that one of my friends let me stay with them. I will get back to where I was, but there will always be a small part of my heart that will never heal. I guess I could get a tattoo or something…

Here’s the only pic of us together taken 30 minutes after we met. Our eyes are closed, the lighting is terrible, but it’s what I have. This picture will be 12 years old in a few months and it’s all I have. One last time to show the world how beautiful she was.

I miss you Cassie.