Chapter 10, It will never be a goodbye

Recap:
Not much happened when we last met in Chapter 9. The tabloids start contacting Zero and the scandal starts to really break in the celebrity news circuit; as a result, the remaining members of his family turn their backs on him and he's kicked out of his church. Zero also watched the Sister Wives finale and cried a lot- same old, same old.

Chapter 10:

Welcome to Chapter 10, a two page long farewell and parting benediction from Zero to everyone even remotely connected to this sordid tale, reader included.

Zero informs us that he never actually said good-bye to Meri; “The last thing I said to her was in a text. I said I will leave you alone.” Which is sort of weird, because in Chapter 9 he let us know that the last time he said anything to Meri was on August 31; in Chapter 7 he told us it was on this date that they set up the Tropical Smoothie showdown. Why would you make a date with someone, that you intend on keeping, only to end by telling them that you’ll leave them alone. Anyhow, he feels that he was being so supportive in telling her that, “That was me accepting her for what she needed.” This “broke” him and caused him to lose Meri but he figures the whole relationship was probably a lost cause before it even started. “I believed in it,” he says pitifully, “I believed with my whole heart that one day we would be married."

He speculates that he forever changed Meri’s life; anticipating my Kate snark, he continues, “Not all bad either.” Thanks for ruining my good time there. He reminds that reader that he’s not actually a bad guy; in fact he’s, “I'm polite. I'm quiet. I can be funny. Know that I work very hard.” Since it's the last chapter, he's really got to drive home the point that he's God's gift to humanity since there might be some hold outs who are still on the fence about it. He also loves all his employees like family; “because they are,” he insists. You see, anyone he interacts with in his life is his family, because he’s an orphan, if you’ve forgotten in the last five minutes, with no immediate family.

Zero tells him that Meri had an impact on his life as well, “I am kinder, more compassionate, and more understanding.” Conveniently, these are supposedly the three qualities Meri used to describe who she thought she was talking to in the final episode of Sister Wives; it must have really impressed him that she could describe him so accurately. He says he has tremendously thick skin because of all that has happened to him since the affair became public; he hopes that his reader will speak kindly of him. “But if you read this and want to be mean,” oh hey, he’s talking about me! “… I will show you grace,” well now, that's convenient. I don't even have to go on my knees begging for Lord Zero's forgiveness- I already have it. He expects that he’ll be criticized about the book or even sued but it doesn’t matter to him, because he just had to share his side of things.

“Are we ready for the big twist?” Ready as I’ll ever be, dear Zero. “This book is a love letter to Meri,” he begins, “But I didn’t write it for her. I didn’t even write it for me.” Wait, what? Didn’t you? Let me check my notes. Book intent- Chapter 1. Aha, here it is, “Someday she will understand why I wrote a book about us. It's going to take her years to realize I wanted us to live on forever. This is the only way that I can make that happen.” Book written for immortality, it’s as clear as day. “I have already immortalized my time with Meri,” Zero announces. What the? When? After starting this book? Can you really change the intent behind your work just because you found a different way to accomplish the same thing along the way? Confused. He drops the bomb that he immortalized his relationship by getting a tattoo on his very mortal body. Apparently he has Meri’s name tattooed on his special snowflake back piece; “she belongs with me, always.” What a creep show. Congrats Meri? So then, what's the big twist? “I wrote this book for her family, her friends, and her fans.”

Perhaps you need to look up the word huh in the dictionary

Talk about a let down. Guy, that's really not a twist; M. Night is probably the only person on the earth who'd be in your corner on that one. He urges her fans to love and support Meri. “She deserves to be listened to,” he insists; sure, everyone should be listened to. “She deserves to act crazy and yell at you,” he continues. Wait… what? I’m sure Meri is a lovely person and all; I’m not sure how anyone can earn the right to yell at another person though… She deserves to yell at me? Why do I deserve to be yelled at? I don't even know Meri. “She deserves you to love her when she’s done having a temper tantrum,” he finishes; I guess there was implied consent that just by reading this book you’ve given Meri Brown the express right to assault you verbally in any manner of her choosing. Congrats everyone!

Zero proves he has some balls of steel when he offers a parting farewell to Kody. Zero recommends that he work on things with Meri, that he even prays he will, and that, “you need to really put in the time to love her as you first loved her or it's time to let her go.” To which I'm sure Kody is thinking, cool bro, no one asked you, while imagining kicking his teeth in. And if he isn't, well, I am. Zero insists Meri is worth it and says that it she stays with Kody, “I bless you both,” Hey, now it's Kody's turn to get a congrats! A Zero blessing is just as good as the Pope's, maybe even better. He politely lets Kody know that, if Meri should decide to leave, “I will always take care of her if one day she chooses me." Zero thinks it should be obvious to Kody, from the book, that he loves Meri a great deal, “I really loved her with everything I had.”

He says farewell to her family, and advises them to “let her be who she is.” Be praises them for doing, “a great job getting her this far,” whatever the hell that means. He tells them that Meri loves them all very much; that the kids are her life. He lets them know that he thinks, “she was never going to leave you.” Great, then maybe you should have walked away when you realized that, you know, before you acted as a catalyst for this irreversible trauma. He offers another farewell to Meri’s fans and tells them that Meri didn’t do anything wrong by having an affair; she just fell in love. Zero says Meri loves her fans and will take time out of her day to be accommodating of their requests; “She is really all that you think she is and more.”

At last it’s Meri’s turn, “Wow, baby, how do I say goodbye to you?” Zero says that he can’t ever say goodbye, and won’t, because she’s still in his heart. “Legend says, true love finds a way,” Zero writes; I’m not going to lie- it was at this moment that I groaned and asked my husband if this idiot was quoting Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park. 

“Dr. Ian Malcolm?” he responded quizzically.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” I said.

“No sweetheart, that’s life. Life finds a way,” he replied, while giving me a look of insincere sympathy and patting my head. 

 Legend says...

He’s right of course, but I’m still a little bummed we’re not talking about the Legend of Jeff Goldblum; I have no idea what legend the Zero is on about and I just don’t care. Anyhow, Zero hopes that Meri will find his way back to him, “I will always welcome you.” Yeah, I bet you'd love another crack at that.  He says if Meri needs anyone to talk to or some financial help, since he’s a mega millionaire and hasn’t reminded us in the last page, he’ll give her everything he has. He prays that she works it out with Kody; “I hope that I was the bridge that brought you two back together.” Fuck face. If anything, you are the spark that set that bridge aflame. You have done your level best to ruin Meri's life in every conceivable way. In fact, you're still threatening to do more damage today; it was just two days ago, as of this writing, that you were bragging that you would release more sexually explicit voicemails. Meri's going to pick up the pieces of her life and move forward; it won't be in thanks to anything you did. Zero writes he loves her, thanks her for the time together, she’s his soulmate, his heart still “cries for her,” blah blah blah. “I miss you. Go get em baby!” And with that, I guess Meri straps on her helmet, bursts from the locker room and goes on to win the big game.

Zero closes with, “I pray for you all. Please pray for me too. I love ya’ll," and it's the last bullshit we will ever have to hear drop from his lips. Amen.

The final 11 pages are just photographs; I know there's been a lot of interest over whether there were any photos of Zero and Meri together so I'll give a little run down of their ludicrous content. There are 13 photos of Meri; they're mostly face photos and she's dressed modestly in all of them. One photo is of Meri's arm with the word "Samuel" scratched, I guess, on it- which could be what Zero is alluding to in the last Chapter when he said she had a "talent" for writing on her arm. One is of a short letter Meri wrote to Zero; it looks like it's photographed on her lap and was probably never given to him . There's a set of Disney photos- one of the gates and another of a park ticket. There's one exceedingly blurry photo of a stage show, which was never mentioned in the book before. We've got a random photo of the SLS Hotel in Las Vegas, also never mentioned in the book before, a shot from a parking lot of what looks like a cave on a mountain, and a shot of the Sherman Oaks Estates entrance sign, where Zero claimed to live. Have we grasped how pointless these are yet? As for the couple themselves, there is one, fairly obviously photoshopped, screenshot of a Facetime conversation between Meri and a younger guy that doesn't look very much at all like half-face Sam. Oh, and we've also got the famous half-face Sam photo as the final photograph

The book ends with a ";)" and it's so large that it honestly fills the page. It's either an unsubtle message to Meri or a gigantic fuck you to the audience- take your pick.

Closing thoughts:

I would like to sincerely thank all of my readers for sticking with me until the end of this. While it may not come across in my writing, I'm really not a confident person; I think it must have been temporary insanity to undertake this project in the first place being as shy  and introverted as I am. 

When I first began I had such low expectations; I braced myself for a slew of negative comments and I figured I'd get a couple hundred page views, at best, total. 22 posts later and I've received nothing but glowing comments and thousands of page views a day. It's been an honor and a pleasure to be able to turn something so awful into something readable, enjoyable and funny. I'm really floored and humbled by the reception and the kind words of encouragement I've received about my writing. I suppose it was always a dream of mine that I'd given up, just because it didn't seem practical; maybe it's not so silly after all. Now, as I sit wondering where to go from here, I'm earnestly considering writing as a possibility. Thank you for that.

I'm very glad that I decided to do this; because of it I've met some of the nicest people that can be found on any corner of the internet. It's not hyperbole to say that everyone I've encountered has been intelligent, kind, funny, talented, and highly educated; usually some combination of all of these traits. It's like being in bizarro world that people with such remarkable characteristics are considered the trolls in this situation, when it should very much be the other way around.

And what of the Zero? I suppose I wouldn't be much of a book club if I didn't offer some parting thoughts on him. This experience has taught me new meaning of the word frustration; it's absolutely maddening at times to be unable to solve the case, as it were; to be unable to point definitively to one piece of evidence, that proves it one way or the other, and to have it all end. It's especially irritating when the perpetrator isn't even all that clever and has stopped being the slightest bit careful about what they do.

Personally, I say fuck it. I'm a very strong believer in fate and karma. There's a perspective about karma that I've always appreciated- karma has no menu, you are served what you deserve. When we think of justice, we tend to think very literally, in dollar signs and prison sentences; yet, karma just doesn't work that way- we do not get to select someone's just desserts. Maybe this is the punishment. Having to invent a lifestyle, family, and friends; pretend you've lived a life you never will, earned things you could never hope to achieve. Well, that's a hell that I just couldn't imagine.

Moving forward, I plan to fuck it; to let this go. I believe Karma is much better equipped to sort it out than I am. To those who do stay involved in this story, I can only say do not get discouraged. Don't ever feel like you're losing. I don't need to meet all of you personally to be able to say, very emphatically, that you are winning. Every morning, you get up and you don't have to pretend to be anything that you're not; if that isn't winning, I don't know what is.

Thank you.
 
 -Kate

Chapter 9, Enlighten me

Recap:

Last time we met we discussed Chapter 8; not much happened. We got to hear about the Zero getting stood up at Tropical Smoothie again; he let us in on the fact that he was going to propose to Meri if only she bothered to show up. He whines and cries about losing Meri but he doesn't do much of anything to address the situation- he just moves away to Chicago to lick his wounds. And wounds he has a plenty- the trolls came back to tell Meri everything they've found out about him, he had some sort of nondescript family emergency, and his distant family and friends completely turned their back on him. Why do bad things happen to nice people.

Chapter 9:

Now we’re in October, the tabloids have started “digging for information” and contacting our fair Zero. He claims he had a total of 12 different reporters approach him; all attempting to buy his side of the story or provide material for their articles. Zero was displeased and says flatly, “I would not give them all they wanted.” Yeah, no kidding. I'm sure they wanted photos or a television interview. They certainly weren't getting that. Nope, nope, nope. Zero insists that, "I did all I could to defend myself online but nothing was helping." What did he do, you ask? Well, he posted some photos no one recollects seeing, talked to some strangers on the phone, and "I even facetimed at least 2 dozen people in video chat to try to clear this whole thing up," despite no one ever stepping forward to confirm that they did indeed see him. There are 7 billion people on the planet, going to each of them, one by one, to try and prove your case is probably the most asinine thing I've ever heard of; shocker, Zero tells us, "that didn't work."

Towards the end of October the scandal had blown up in the media circuit, according to the Zero, and his family, I guess the remaining few we didn’t know were still alive and didn’t make the confession reunion in Nebraska a month earlier, began to notice and shut him off. The Uncle who used to make it rain on his favorite nephew, while advising him to disregard females and acquire currency, way back in Chapter 1 has returned; he is unmoved by the Zero's plight, telling him, "this is the bed you made, lay in it." Lindsay is pretty much the only person in Zero's corner; "she went on the defensive and started getting accounts suspended on twitter or deleted on facebook." Honestly, I just can't swallow that a 42 year old millionaire would choose this as his first line of defense to save his reputation. Lawyer up man- go take on the tabloids and get this whole thing resolved since you're telling the truth and all. Amazingly, Lindsay's high school antics don't help the situation much, "The group of trolls had grown into a larger group. Anytime I blocked them, they would just create new accounts and start all over. It was non-stop."

 Step one- fire

 

And while these mildly discomforting things are happening, the Zero is just, “trying to grieve the loss of Meri.” To make matter worse, Zero is needed back at the Las Vegas office and has to spend all of October in the same city as his lost love. Since the only reliable way to get over someone, is to get under someone, Lindsay recommends Zero to a friend of hers, a young emergency room nurse, named Peyton, and the two start dating half-heartedly. Zero calls her a sweet girl, but the problem is that she is an ardent fan of Sister Wives and, “all she wanted to talk about was the affair.” Peyton is enamored with Zero though, who wouldn’t be, and asks to see him more often. Zero doesn’t want to talk about Meri anymore, since she’s already all he thinks about, so he tells her, “we are better off as friends … it was too soon for me to be dating.” Peyton seems to be hard of hearing, or doesn’t understand the word boundaries, so she wants to get physical with Zero by the end of the month. Zero says, “I told her I wasn’t ready and wouldn’t,” which just enrages Peyton, who feels she’s been led on. She tells Zero she doesn’t want his friendship if it doesn’t include any benefits. They have a long heart to heart and decide to be friends, which is just silly- you don't have to cling onto people you barely know just because you dated once. “We still are to this day but she continues to ask me about everything in the media,” yeah, crazy. Again, you're whining about stuff no one is making you deal with. Don't be friends with her, it's fine. Zero comforts himself with, “I don't think that if I really gave that relationship a try it would have worked out anyway.” Okay. Well hello and good-bye, Peyton.

“I really don’t think I’m ready to date anyone,” remarks the Zero candidly. He creepily informs us that, “At this point I know who I want to send the rest of my life with but it’s not a possibility anymore.” Oh ew. We're still obsessing over Meri aren't we. Yep,  “My heart is so full of love for Meri. All I can think about is Meri. I miss Meri. I wish she and I could have made things work out.” Just as he’s trying to make some headway in the Meri pity department, he switches gears so abruptly that the resulting metaphorical grinding sound sets my teeth on edge. “I'm both sad and heartbroken after all of the media came out with such disgusting lies about me,” wait what? He continues, “They call me a catfish, a liar, a fake. It's ridiculous! And I can't do anything to prove myself.”

Nope, so much nope

There are so many things you could do to prove yourself; throwing this little pity party to obfuscate the truth that you're choosing to do nothing is total horseshit. You chose not to speak to the media. You chose not to provide so much as a picture of yourself. This is all on you pal. You could record a 30 second clip of you saying, "Hello, I'm Samuel Cooper. People think I'm Jackie Overton, but I'm not. I'm Samuel Cooper," post it online and that would quite literally be the end of it. All the stress, aggravation, trolls- all gone. And that's one idea I came up with, with roughly ten seconds of thought invested. You're sitting over there stewing for months and you've come up with nothing to clear your name? Oh look, Zero anticipated this reaction and is ready with some bullshit defense, “Everytime I tried they would just say it's not real. So I gave up.” Oh I forgot, you're traumatized with learned helplessness.

So the dumb ass, who can’t figure out how to tie his own shoes, is starting to feel really alone. “And then I remember what I had been taught in Church when you feel alone. You pray,” oh here we go, the return of Zero the martyr. He starts praying every night, on his knees, at his bedside; “sometimes over an hour.” He asks for forgiveness but his prayers seem to have a more self serving bent, “I would ask God to take me to my true purpose. Use my life for something more than this. I do not want to only be known as the guy that had the affair with Meri Brown.” Not sure you get to beg Him for forgiveness and then tell Him what to do for you, but whatever. In his quest for healing, he goes to an unnamed Catholic Church, in an unnamed location, and shares his sins at confession. Though I don’t know a lot about Catholicism, and this seems counter-intuitive to the purpose of having a confessional in the first place, this puts the Zero in some hot water with his church. “I begged my Church leadership to give me another chance,” Zero insists, but his pleas fall upon deaf ears. He receives a letter to inform him that, “I was removed from the membership of my family Church back home … They erased me out completely.” His family had evidently been a member of this church since 1974; he’s extremely upset that a mere letter ended his stay there.

Again, I’m not an expert on Catholicism, but I’m calling bullshit on this one. My own Grandmother was excommunicated from the Catholic church in the late 1940s for daring to obtain a divorce; she was so incensed that she never returned to the church, but she could have. According to Catholicism for Dummies, the primary three types of punishment meted out to church members are excommunication, suspension (reserved for clerics), and interdict. An interdict simply forbids a church offender from receiving the sacrament; excommunication is the big one- the highest ecclesiastical penalty on offer. If Zero was penalized at all, it most likely would have been an excommunication; an excommunicated individual is either deprived of, or given limited, membership in the church while they think about the wrongs they've committed. It's generally always temporary; once the individual repents sufficiently they seek reversal of the excommunication from the appropriate level of the church, depending on the severity of the offense. Some offenses are so severe that only the Pope himself can reverse them. In any case, the offending church member is never banned from the church or removed from church records. In fact, some former Catholics have begged to be removed from these, usually in cases where they have joined another religion or renounced their faith in God altogether, and the church fundamentally refuses to do so; they feel that such actions would be destroying historical records. Zero just wouldn't have been erased from history, and he'd definitely be welcome back.

Afterwards Zero sank into depression again. “The problem is I will never believe that falling in love with Meri was a sin,” well of course not, you know better than God; you’ve hinted at it several times before. I can't imagine why your church doesn't want you back. He theorizes that the relationship made both him and Meri “better people” and, therefore, couldn’t have been wrong. After the relationship ended, he’s not a better person anymore; “I was quiet, more introspective and sad.” Zero becomes depressed for a few months, “No one prepares you for the fall of a great love. And she was my greatest love.” 

Judy just keeps dropping the ball

Zero maintains that the last time he contacted Meri was on August 31^st to set up their meeting; the two hadn’t talked, through any medium, since. “I wanted to. You don't even know how many times I picked up my phone to call her. But I didn't. Why? She made her choice and she chose her family over me,” aha. So that’s the final story we’re sticking with- Meri chose her family over him. He's never hinted at this before as being Meri's intent but sure, why not; it's vague and partially true to a degree. Solid choice. He's still surprised that he had an affair with a married woman; he asks himself, "Was it worth it?" He answers with a resounding yes after very little reflection.

“And then the finale went on the tv,” intones Zero, even though this happened in late November and not October, but whatever. Zero asserts that he didn’t watch it live but was forced to relent later when his, “lawyer called and said you better watch it.” Dude, what is this millionaire paying you for? You watch it and find some grounds upon which to sue. Luckily, Zero has the episode recorded and he sits down to view it, “I watched my baby cry as she remembered how much we laughed.” Ugh, nine chapters in and he's still such a fuck face- not a degree of empathy or understanding anywhere in his soul. Always one to be moved by his personal magnificence, “I cried as she was crying talking about how I was very kind, very compassionate, and very understanding. No, I bawled. I sat on the couch and bawled like a baby.” It takes him 20 minutes to pull himself together and be able to finish watching the episode; even today, as he’s writing the book, he starts, “crying right now thinking about to seeing her cry.” Good grief. “My Meri. My beautiful Meri,” he moans theatrically, and you can just totally picture him sitting in front of his television, stroking Meri’s hair on the screen.

Zero watching Sister Wives- visual approximation

He tells us pointedly that he typed out a response on his blog when the episode ended; that he won’t go into it again because he doesn’t, “want to relive that part of my life.” He's totally checked out on the book, you're going to have to go the extra mile to pencil in those details yourself. “She lied,” he says simply, “She went on national tv and lied.” He says something vaguely interesting though, “She said who she was talking to this whole time she thinks is a woman. That's not true and she knows it. And I'll leave it at that.” Their relationship is almost consistently defined as talking- the Zero is hardly bothered to refute the fact. He says he fired off a quick note to Meri on the blog, separate from the response, as well; it said “I am still in love with you. No matter what. You will always be my baby, Meri.” He also posted some tacky quote photo that said, “You weren’t just a star to me. You were my whole damn sky.” Which might move a 15 year old high school student but an adult you've just conned into a relationship with you, not so much. “I can't get over Meri. I don't even want to. She was my reason to look forward to the next day. I can't unlove her. She is my Queen. How do I go on?”

He breaks here for a few weeks, from writing the book; when he returns he has, “come to a new sense of peace about this.” He’s decided that by writing he can simultaneously remember the events and let go of them. He draws strength from God and the remaining friends who can accept the mistakes he’s made. “And I love myself enough to stop beating myself up internally,” ha, I'm sure there never was an issue there. He’s also decided that the affair was the “greatest love I have ever experienced,” and he has a lot of great stories to tell, why he didn’t include these in the book is anyone’s guess, so it shouldn’t be considered a bad thing that happened. Even though we’re in super positive mode, he lets the audience know that, “I still cry. It’s not as often but I do.” Ugh, man up already. He says that being in Las Vegas is hard and he doesn’t belong there; he ends up selling both his condo and the house he purchased for Meri. He’s still contractually obligated to keep his office there, to run a business and all, but he has no future plans to live there ever again. Somewhere Meri is breathing a huge sigh of relief knowing that they'll always have a few states between them.

He reflects on Meri, who will always be his baby, warmly and states, “There are so many great things that make her unique and special.” Most of these are the normal fluffy bland things you’d expect someone to say about a person that they loved, like her laugh or the way she said his name, but some of them… just aren’t. He misses, “The way you can't brush your teeth in front of her because she gets physcially ill. The way she can write your name on her arm with just her finger and it's legiable. The way she can squish a water bottle in one shot.” The hell is this?  Really? Seriously, if my relationship with you ends and the only thing you can remember about me is the awesome way I could crush a beer can on my forehead please, please, do me a favor and just don’t remember me at all. Kay?

He tells us again that Meri will always be his baby, “since he doesn’t call her that.” Dude, no. No. That’s not how life works. You don’t get to own someone in perpetuity as long as their current romantic partner doesn’t use the pet name you selected for them; there’s not some sort of love loophole to discover here. I didn’t think this was something that anyone would need explained to them. Geezes. Zero tells us that he’s magnanimous and happy for Meri; “That’s what love is. You want the other person to be happy, even if they aren’t with you.” Which is a sweet sentiment on the surface, but is just some weird bullshit to remind Meri that he will always be thinking of her; that whatever she does with the rest of her life will be because he allowed it to happen or something.

“I will never forget my Meri,” he assures us; it’s on to the final chapter and the surprise twist we’ve been promised.

-Kate

Chapter 8, What do I do with all of this?

Recap:
Welcome back to our little book club. Last chapter was a big one; Meri went to Alaska with the family and Zero glowered about the fact, from a distance, while on a trip of his own. He barely pretended to care about the exciting details of her vacation but was pleased when Meri finally announced on camera that she wanted to leave the clan and do her own thing. When Meri returned to Las Vegas, the couple reunited by phone and fell in love all over again, for at least 5 seconds or so. Zero claims Meri snaps and demands they meet face to face and discuss where the Zero wants to take the relationship. For reasons no one understands, Zero refuses, only to eventually relent and agree to meet at Tropical Smoothie. However, when the time to meet rolls around, Meri is a no show and it looks like it's splitsville for these star crossed lovers.

Just a quick note- these final chapters are super short. Really, two of them are about three pages each. I'll try my best to get them all out this week!

Chapter 8:
The Zero is recounting the beginning of the month of September, again; he’s randomly decided that the reader needs three more chapters of this saga so those pages have got to come from somewhere and material is getting really thin. Even though his relationship with Meri has been in the worst spot it’s been the entire book he’s optimistic, “In between August and that first week of September 7th, I had so much hope.” Kay. Maybe he wrote Chapter 7 differently in his head than I read it- things seemed pretty darn hopeless.

He’s preparing, in nonsensical Zero fashion, for his Tropical Smoothie reunion with his lady love; he got a new haircut and bought a brand new suit. He got a new suit… to go to Tropical Smoothie- a sentence that has never been said by anyone in human history. Really, they make other articles of clothing for millionaires; suits aren’t like the uniform they have to wear everywhere, even though the author seems to think so. Hell, even Christian Grey managed to take off the suit when he went to stalk Anastasia while she was working at the hardware store. Take notes from the fictional, marginally superior, definitely sociopathic, controlling billionaires who have come before you. Zero also bought an engagement ring and popped it into his pocket to bring with him to the meeting. Sensing that proposing in the tackiest place imaginable would have provided Kate with much amusement and mirth, he dashes my hopes instantly by announcing, “I wasn't going to propose to her at Tropical Smoothie … I was going to propose to her later that night.” Just can't let a girl have a good time, can you. “If things went bad,” which they almost certainly would, “I was going to give her the ring because I had it inscribed and what could I do with it?” Hey it's engraved now, nothing you can do about that- might as well pitch it in the street. How this guy gets through life I'll never know.

Zero waiting at the old Tropical Smoothie- visual approximation

(Photo assistance provided by the lovely @netterrrr)

We already know that Meri doesn’t show up; Zero reminds us of this fact, “No call. No text. She was gone.” He maintains that, “And not gone because she was mad or didn't love me anymore. The very last time we talked she said 4 times that she did love me.” So she loves you so much that she cut you off without giving you any reason and then ditched you last minute without any explanation. Okay then. I really don’t understand the Zero’s frame of mind at this point, well, any point in the book really. I can't pinpoint what he feels Meri's reasoning is for any of this.

“So what do I do with all of this?” the Zero asks helplessly. Be an adult? Act like a man? I don’t know. Personally, if my pseudo fiancé changed their mind about our engagement on a dime and then stood me up for our scheduled meeting I would be bending heaven and earth to find out why. I would at least show up at their house; if you’re practically their fiancé that would be perfectly reasonable to do. If they ask you to leave, well then you leave; at least you’ll know you tried and you’ll know that it’s absolutely over. Call. Text. E-mail. Skype. Do something if you can’t talk to them face to face. Do anything. Living in this emotional limbo is just so silly and unnecessary. But if I’ve learned anything from this book it’s that, if it’s ridiculous and stupid, the Zero’s name is all over it; he opts instead to, “[cry] a lot. I was so lost.” Good job bro.

Crisis management- Zero style

Zero is now in pity party mode; just picture him wandering around his condo in a bathrobe that he hasn’t changed for a week while sobbing hysterically and you’ve pretty much gotten the gist of this chapter. “I tried to get myself together,” he moans, “and just when I thought I would be feel better a song would come on that would make me think of her. Or I would be see something that I had in my house for her.” And when he thinks about Meri it’s like the break up just happened all over again, and he’s back to rocking in the fetal position. “I couldn’t take it,” laments the Zero, and he decides that the only way to deal with the pain in his heart is to move “back” to Chicago, even though he said he was living in Oklahoma City at the start of the book.

Before he can move, however, a family emergency springs up back in his birth state of Nebraska. He doesn’t describe the emergency or tell us who it involves specifically; I’m at a total loss because he’s whined that he’s an orphan with no living relatives at least three times in the book so far. Maybe they’re very distant relations? Who knows. Even though the family has just suffered some sort of terrible calamity, and would presumably be preoccupied by it, they start asking Zero about the things they’d seen in the press about his relationship with Meri. Zero feels obligated to these people he’s previously led us to believe were all dead and, “I confessed it all. I told them I had an affair with a married woman please forgive me.” He doesn’t stop unburdening himself there either; he starts confessing his sins to his childhood friends as well. His friends respond by being unbelievably self-righteous and displeased, “I lost some friends that I had since I was 10 years old turn their back on me. They said God doesn't forgive affairs.” Ouch, and to think of all the times you took the fall for them on the playground; guess that stop snitching thing really worked out for you.

Remember when you bragged about the stop snitching thing for a whole page? Kate does

So with a failed relationship and disastrous family reunion behind him, he’s back to his posh condo in downtown Chicago. He tries to move forward, “I buried myself into work and hanging out with my friends. I traveled a little and did the best I could to try and get over this,” but he just can’t shake his sense of loss. He says he begins to question everything in his life; “I felt so unlovable and absolutely worthless.” He sinks into a dark emo place where he stops talking about love and hope, or even talking much at all, and a nasty rumor crops up on social media that he had killed himself. And when his own "real-life" friends are saying things like "he's gone," or "R.I.P. Sam" it sort of seems like, if he didn't create the rumor himself, he definitely perpetuated it; it's basically what you'd expect a Sociopath to do in order to elicit a response from their victim or shock them into returning to the fold.

In mid-September the nasty, no good internet trolls are back and they start harassing the Zero, and his perma-sidekick Lindsay, to a greater degree. He suggests that these people are hypocrites, who previously called Meri terrible things, and are now giving her “false, fake, and photoshopped information that she was looking at.” Which, logically, wouldn't mean a thing to Meri. Presumably, though he doesn't say so, the trolls were telling her that he wasn't real, or even a male, and providing her with whatever evidence they had collected. If she'd pranced around Disneyland, gone to Hobby Lobby every weekend, and had sex with him, then this would just make her chuckle at the absurdity and nothing more. Meri is interested in what they have to say though; “because she gave them attention they continued to feed it to her.” Meri even passes the information on to her friends; Zero is chagrined that one of her good friends takes it upon herself to make her own anonymous Twitter account to bash him in defense of her wounded gal pal. Which, again, is not the reaction of someone whose friend's relationship just didn't pan out; is exactly the reaction of someone whose friend has been duped into believing their love interest was a hunky millionaire and turned out to be a female con artist. Lindsay then comes to the rescue and, “found out it was her and called her out on it. Soon after the woman deleted that account because it was spilling over to her real personal twitter account.”

At the end of the day, Zero would like us to feel very, very sorry for him and says, “The rumors got worse everyday and eventually lead me to lose clients, vendors, and a lot of projects that I wanted to bid on. My entire life, my name, everything was falling apart.” I could probably scrounge up an ounce of remorse for him if he'd done, I don't know... anything to defend himself or fix his relationship with Meri. Really, all he's done this chapter is cry, run away, and possibly fake his own death. Sucks to suck buddy.

The entire chapter in a single gif- visual approximation

He closes tearfully, “September was bad but what happened in October was worse.”

-Kate