His features thickened, and his hair thinned out.

He didn’t look that bad, at least at first,

But he no longer looked at all like Tom.

One morning he stopped going to the office.

He was the one who always closed the deals.

Without him, business slowed, the clients fled.

A few months later Tom shut the place down.

His face kept getting worse. One afternoon

When I came home from work, he left the room.

Shutting the door, he cried, ‘Don’t look at me!’

I leaned against the door and said I loved him

No matter what he looked like. I see now

What a mistake that was. Later that night

He took the mirrors down in the apartment.

I didn’t like it, but I understood.

I hardly saw him after that. He hid

Whenever I was home. A few days later

I saw that all our photographs were gone,

Even our wedding book, all thrown away.

I screamed at him, then cried. I asked him why.

He said, ‘I didn’t like them anymore.’

Six months ago he simply moved away—

No note, no warning, nothing else was missing,

No clothes, no books, not even his cell phone,

None of the beautiful things we chose together.

I thought he would come back. I waited for him.

I worried that he might have killed himself.

Then a new check came through on his account—

Just for a small amount, but signed by him.

Finally, some detectives tracked him down.

They gave me an address. And so I went.

The taxi took me to a tenement.

Could the address be right? The place was sordid.

I hesitated to get out alone.

I had the driver wait along the curb.

Garbage was piled on both sides of the door.

The corridors were dark and smelled of grease.

How could Tom leave me for this awful place?

I found his door and knocked. There was no answer.

I knocked again, and then I lost control.

I pounded wildly, screaming at the door.

Finally, a voice spoke. His voice. It said,

‘The person that you’re looking for is gone.

Tom isn’t here. Tom isn’t anywhere.’

I begged and wept. He wouldn’t let me in.

A neighbor came out in his underwear

And stared at me. I felt ashamed and left.”

Back in the bar, as Eden told me this,

She started crying, sobbing quietly.

I reached to touch her hand. She pulled away.

Then she looked up at me. Her eyes were blackened,

Smeared from her streaked eyeliner, but they shined

With the intensity of the insane.

“Charlie,” she said. “You’ve got to talk to him.

Tom always said you were his closest friend.”

V.

The “sordid” tenement turned out to be

An ordinary place, down on its luck.

Despite the filthy brick façade, it wasn’t

Much worse than the apartment where I lived.

His hallway, though, really did stink of grease,