I used to have a roommate named Connor Jenkins. I’m becoming an old man now, my complexion is sprinkled with gray and due to the events I will now share with you my face has developed a pervading lined seriousness. I can see it all clearly now, it was the turn of the century and I had just gotten my first job at a prestigious law firm in the city. I was a recent college graduate and I had ambitions to climb in my field, but eventually my career oriented personality began to dwindle. This was for the reason they always do, I had met a beautiful blonde girl, the love of my life, Julia. She had the most pleasant disposition and grace that made all men fall in love with her and I was enchanted under her spell. Everyone who met her fell in love with her, but no one loved her more, and with more care then my roommate Connor Jenkins.
He was a man people liked when they got to know him, he was trustworthy, sincere and handsome. You will wonder why I was not jealous of this man who loved my girlfriend so much and had such amiable qualities. It could have been very normal for someone in my position, but there was a caveat: Connor Jenkins was gay. At the time this was still regarded as highly controversial, gay marriage was still on the cusp of being legalized across the country. However, I prided myself on my progressive nature and how could I not be grateful to the man who introduced me to my girlfriend? Who was always showing his respect and allegiance to my relationship and was faithfully serving our platonic needs, you can understand why I was so fond of this man.
In those days I was swamped with work which was not at all agreeable to me as I wanted to spend every second I could courting my romantic partner Julia, but in this regard Connor played a most useful role. Connor worked with Julia and he would often tell me about how he told off Julias coworkers, he would say things to me along the lines of, “yknow, Julia and I were totally working out booty at the gym today, and G.I Joe chad came up and asked her for her number, and I totally stepped in and said I was her boyfriend”.
His lies were amusing, but I was young and dumb and when I called him out on his bullshit he would laugh so hard you couldn’t help but join in. After all I was also a young fool and life was good so I forgave him everything.
It was around this time I got involved in a terrible accident, a drunk driver in the lane across from swerved into me. I was in the hospital for three weeks barely conscious for a significant part of it. The doctors would tell me how Connor never left my side, he would attend my every desire. As I started to come around I would have to beg him to leave me and live his life. Guilty of how much this man cared about me. He would pretend that I needed him and serve desires I didn’t even have. I came to love him, yes, I loved this gay man. This man loved me back too and if ever I were to shed a tear this man would cry with me.
Six months passed before something tested that love to such an extreme degree nothing could rectify it.
It was the Christmas holidays and I was in an outstanding mood as I came home from my last shift unaware of what awaited me at home. I stumbled upon Julia laying on the living room floor, beaten within inches of her life. Her dress was torn from a struggle, blood littered the room and her beautiful face and neck were purple. I ran to her side to start resuscitation, desperate and hopeless. I realized I was far too late. I screamed, the neighbors came running and the cops were called. Everyone was stunned and one question was being whispered and lingered in the air around the room, who did this terrible thing? A description of a young fit blonde man leaving the room was given by a neighbor. My stomach sank to my feet and I wanted to vomit. The front door security tapes were checked only to discover my young fit blonde roommate Connor Jenkins leaving that morning. The evidence was there pointing and blaring. The rage of the crowd was intense like the swarm of bees from a smashed hive, homophobic slurs were passed around like a collection basket. A search ensued immediately.
When Julia’s parents arrived at the crime scene her mother was hysterical in tears, but her father had an expressionless face as cold as ice. Now I knew something the cops didn’t know, I knew where to look for Connor, his secret lover’s house two towns away. I beckoned Julia’s father to me and before long, off we rode. The two of us sat with a loaded glock and the frenzy of fathers’ wrath for the loss of his beloved daughter. A gloomy premonition of the impending events breathed through the vents of that car’s heat.
I can’t explain how I felt on that car ride as we went to find this demon. My mind was out of my body. I experienced myself as more of a predator than as a man. I could sympathize with an animal desire for blood and torture. We arrived at the house and we could see Connors’ shadowy outline in the window. We sat and waited for dark so we could ambush him as he left the house to his car.
We didn’t have to wait long as it was dusk and Connor Jenkins came bumbling along blissfully unaware. As I strutted rapidly to him my fist clenched was clenched and my eyes filled with bloodlust. “Fancy seeing you!” he said in a shocked expression. “Fancy?” I yelped, “I’m going to see you killed!”. His confusion caused him to stumble back a step, this made me sure of his guilt. As I descended upon him, I struck him as hard as I could with a single blow across the face. “Why?” came a screaming sputtering of the saddest voice I had ever heard. His arms were raised hopelessly in self defense, “I’ve only been here to see my lover, what have I done?”. “Lies, all lies” I cried out. At this point Julia’s dad had caught up to me and delivered another blow that rendered Connor unconscious.
We dragged him into the woods to a small clearing and tied him to the base of a tall birch tree with a bit of rope I had in my car. We worked in silence; retribution was the only thing on our minds.
When I splashed water on his face he sputtered to life, his eyes swollen red. I showed him a picture on my iphone of Julia’s lifeless body. He screamed, and his face turned pale. We felt this was enough to condemn him and were barely paying attention to his cries of, “oh my god! My dearest friend Julia!”. “Please, you don’t think I actually did it? Please believe me” every syllable was enunciated with desperation. Julia’s dad was silently shaking, his gun was peering down into the blue eyes of Connor. “Kill him,” I said. A shot rang out in the forest, a only bloodstained tree sat there as the witness.
I remember my sadness and the look of desperation on his face that I fear facing in the afterlife. It wasn’t until the next morning that the official autopsy confirmed what chilled me to my spine. The skin under Julia’s nails was that of a black man, not of my white roomate Connor.
As I live the rest of my life in a prison cell, guilt is the only emotion that colors my life, I think I will soon take my own life. And that reddit, Is why I will never pass judgment on anyone again.