Chapter 1

I was coughing on dust, tears welling in my eyes as I looked down at the pool of my vomit on the side of the desert highway. We were somewhere in Arizona, or maybe Utah; my pickup was pulled off to the side of the road as dust swirled around us whenever a transport truck burned by.

“I’m sorry,” Cassidy sobbed. She was sitting up in the cab in the passenger seat, the door hanging open. It was almost funny - I’d been worried about the fact that she had a reciprocal gag reflex when I pulled over, feeling myself about to hurl. I’d been worried about her, when the rest of my body hurt because of her. Because of her words. She’d thrown up moments after I did, my partner even in that.

My partner in everything, I’d thought.

I spit the sour taste of bile out of my mouth and sat back on my heels, closing my eyes and just feeling the heavy beat of the sun on my skin. I almost wanted the burn to distract me from the hurt inside.

“Robbie?” Cassidy cried.

I stood up without saying anything to her and went to the back gate of my truck. I unlocked it and shoved our luggage aside underneath the bed cover and found the cooler. I pulled it forward and popped it open. We’d only had a six-pack in the house, but I’d loaded it with ice before we left on our trip. Her trip, really. I was just supposed to be along for the ride. The plan was to pick up more alcohol closer to Lake Powell, before we went to the houseboat rental place.

Standing on the side of the road, I cracked open the beer on the edge of the cooler and didn’t even care that it foamed up. I took a pull off of it, swirling the cold beer in my mouth and then spitting it out. Then I drained the rest of the fucking bottle and threw the empty as far as I could into the desert.

I slammed the gate shut and stomped around to the driver’s side of the truck again, opening the door angrily and getting in, and slamming it shut.

Cassidy slid fully into the cab and shut her door. She was wearing a cute little outfit of daisy duke shorts and a crop top that hugged her slim body, with the sort of kneesocks she knew I liked on her long legs, and checkered low ankled vans. She’d had those shoes for years - I’d bought her those shoes during our first year at University. Cassidy had gone full emo-girl on them when we were younger, drawing on the white rubber soles with permanent markers. I could picture the ‘Cassie Hearts Robbie’ on the right side of the right foot.

“Please talk to me,” she pleaded quietly, trying not to sob again.

I put both hands on the centre of the steering wheel and leaned in, letting the truck horn wail into the desert as I grit my teeth and then yelled with it, loud in the closed cab of the truck. I stopped when I broke down crying. Cassidy was crying as well, hugging herself.

When we’d cried ourselves out, I fished behind my seat and found a roll of paper towels, ripping off a couple and handing them to her before taking some for myself. I blew my nose, and then wiped my face.

“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Why would you-?” I couldn’t finish.

“I loved you. I always loved you. None of them meant anything. It was ... I was an addict. To the game, to the feeling. To the sex,” she said. I could hear the heartbreak in her voice, the deep seated guilt that she’d been carrying around for years.

“But it doesn’t make sense,” I said again.

“The App,” Cassidy said.

“Start from the beginning again. Spare me the ... the details of who,” I said.

“It showed up on my phone on my eighteenth birthday, the first day of Senior Year. My Mom had died the week before. I didn’t even open it the first week. When I finally did, it seemed crazy to me, too,” Cassidy said. “A phone app that claims to affect your relationships like a game? It was stupid. But it could do things - every time I spoke with someone, they would show up in the app. It didn’t matter if I had their contact information, or were friends on social media or anything. They would show up, with a picture and a score. An ‘Affection’ rating, counting how much they liked me. That afternoon I was the yearbook photographer for the fall swim meet - you won first place in the breaststroke. And afterwards, when we talked, and then I checked your rating, I realized that we weren’t just friends. You loved me - an 82 in Affection, and a 33 Love. I’ll never forget those numbers. Sure, my Dad loved me more, but he didn’t actually like me as much as you did. You were my only real friend. Did you know you were the only kid from our school to wish me a happy birthday that year? No one else remembered. I don’t think I ever told you that. So I asked you out, right there at the swim meet, and that’s all it took. It’s like I’d given you permission to love me even more, and you shot up to a 60 Love score, and a 70 Lust score.”

“I’d asked you out three times before,” I said. “You always thought I was joking, or teasing you.” It was part of the cute couple story our parents told their friends, now. We didn’t have a ‘meet cute’ story because we’d grown up three doors down from each other since we were six.

“And you opened up this ... this world for me. Of being loved, but also being wanted. Robbie, you gave me every ounce of love I needed. Please believe me, everything else was just ... lust. And power.” Cassidy paused for a long time. “I didn’t even try, the first time. One minute I was helping her with some homework, the next she was kissing me in the library, whispering how I was so nice, how she wanted me. I’d seduced her without even trying - sure, she was a closet lesbian, but I knew it was the App. And I let her go down on me, and I felt ... wanted. And she did what I wanted. By Christmas break I’d perfected the method - I could seduce any girl in school. It was so easy. I could say the right things, notice a new earring or haircut, and in five days or less I’d be knuckle deep in their pussy. And we would go on dates and talk on the phone, and you’d show me every day how much you loved me, and rock my world when we’d get to sleep together.

“By the end of the year, I’d probably had a lesbian encounter with two-thirds of our graduating class, plus several girls I met at other schools while I was taking photos at sporting events, and a half dozen more in the neighbourhood. That summer, any day that you weren’t dicking me down, I was on a pussy rampage - MILFs in the neighbourhood, women who worked retail at shops in town; I could play them like puppets and get what I wanted from them.”

“I didn’t even know you were bisexual,” I said.

“Because I hid it from you,” Cassidy sobbed. “Because- because I knew the whole time what I was doing was wrong, deep down. I was lying to you, and lying to myself. I’d tell myself it wasn’t a big deal since I never had sex with guys. That you would think it was hot when I eventually told you. But I worked so hard to keep it a secret, even while you poured your love on me. I kept it up during college, all the way into third year. Always with girls, and never in our apartment - I don’t know why I knew that was a line I couldn’t cross, doing it in our place, but I just knew it was a betrayal too far without ever thinking about it. Then - well, do you remember when the depression started?”

“November, third year,” I mumbled. “Right after Halloween.”

She nodded. Cassidy was sitting in her seat, hugging her legs to her chest. She’d lowered her sunglasses - little round ones she called her ‘Leon the Professional’ glasses. They were blacked out, but I could see her red eyes as she stared down at the console, unable to meet my gaze. “There was this girl who I was working on, and she resisted me longer than anyone had for a couple of years. She was like this challenge I had to crack. Finally, on Halloween, I was helping her with her costume and she turns to me and asks me if I want to be in a threesome with her and her boyfriend, and I suggest that just the two of us could fool around, and we go in circles a bit and she ends up crying because she wants me, but doesn’t want to betray her boyfriend who she loves and plans on marrying. And she ends up deciding she can’t give in, and she just leaves. Says we can’t be friends anymore because I’m dangerous to her relationship, and walks out.

“And that’s when it hit me that she wasn’t something to chase, she was what I should be trying to be. She- I- I broke. It took a few days for me to really realize it, mostly because I got blackout drunk on Halloween with you, and kept the party going to try and drown out my own head. But when I came out of that, I knew I was the worst fucking person. I tried deleting the App, but it wouldn’t get off my phone. I tried getting a new phone, and it just appeared on the new one without me doing anything.”