𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬

1 | Erasing the Last Traces Of You

(A/N: This is the third instalment of the method series, so if you haven't read the first two books - go back and do that before starting this one!)

TOM

Sunday morning, 4am. It's still pitch black, darkness consuming the sky. The colourful city lights around me are blurry in my vision through the car windscreen and my lingering hangover doesn't help. It's a new habit I've picked up when I've been drinking, taking Adderall helps kick me back into gear when I've been on a bender like this.

I haven't slept in over nineteen hours.

We as humans are born with five senses. They are straight forward, universal and simple. They guide us through reality. It's how we know things are real.
Touch. Taste. See. Listen. Smell.

When I feel like I'm on auto-pilot, I try to acknowledge my senses. That's what my therapist says.

Listen. The music connecting my phone to my car plays in the background although the passing cars and wind flushing rapidly through car windows makes it hard to focus on the song. Listen. The throbbing bass of the music resonating through the car speakers.

Taste. The spearmint gum in my mouth has almost lost its flavour by this stage although I continue to chew it. Taste. Along my lips is the faint residue of her lip gloss, a hint of vanilla and strawberry.

Touch. The Italian Saffiano leather upholstery of the steering wheel as I drive us both. It's smooth, cool to the touch and soft against my skin. Touch. My hand gripping her head with my free hand, strands of hair woven through my fingers. It rises and falls with the movements of her mouth. Touch. My cock is hard, rigid, stiff, throbbing.

She speeds up when a string of moans leave my mouth and my head pushes back into the car seat. Touch. I push my foot down on the accelerator as the speed of the car matches the speed of my growing climax. Touch. Her tongue flicking across the tip of my cock as I finally cum in her mouth. I slow the car down again.

To touch something is to feel something. But I feel nothing. There is no emotion inside of me. I feel empty. I continue to drive us in silence, only a few more blocks until we get to the virtually empty car park.

"Thanks for dropping me to work baby, you still good for picking me up when I finish?" The brunette girl says staring at me, touching up her lipstick in the passenger seat mirror. I nod, although I most definitely will not be back; I don't even remember her name.

She kisses my cheek, tells me not to miss her too much and gets out of my car. I cringe. Staring blankly through the windscreen, I watch her walk across the gravel covered car park in her cheap scuffed heels and overtly slutty outfit. Her day job is working as a receptionist in a Botox clinic, yet she looks like she works at a D-grade strip club.

Given I met her last night, I don't have her number or any social media. Thank god. I met her last night at a bar called O'Finnigans; an Irish pub that I wouldn't be caught dead in within my own town. I fucked her back at her apartment; a studio decorated with an old discarded pizza box on the coffee table and more ashtrays laying around than bottles of soap.

We haven't slept even a wink of sleep. And now I've dropped her to her shitty work with a quick sloppy blow job on the drive there and I will drive back home to never see her again. The definition of a cheap thrill.

Except, there is no thrill anymore. I've resorted to more uncouth methods to find thrill as extreme as my life before my break up with Y/N. Sex feels different. Boxing fights feel different. Driving feels different. Even killing people feels different.

Everything is numb.

I drive back onto the high way to start my journey home, which will be at least two hours. I pop another Adderall tablet to keep me alert and awake, I keep a pack in the car specifically for this reason. I've found myself in this part of town quite often lately, seeking yet another woman to fill the void. I would stay closer to home but I'd rather stay unknown.

I give these girls fake names. I dazzle them with my expensive clothes and expensive car. I flash my wallet at the bar and pay with my platinum card. From that point onwards, they're like jelly in my hands; they'd do anything I want. They don't know me as Tom Holland, Godfather of one of Europe's largest and most successful mafia's. They know me as Jay, Flynn, Derek, Sebastian or fucking Diego for all I know. I don't let them know me. I don't want them to know me.

But every time is the same. No matter how beautiful she may be, no matter how good at sex she might be, no matter what her personality is like or how she talks, she's not Y/N. They're never like Y/N.

Without her being in my life, I struggle finding experiences to spark joy. Nothing thrills me. Nothing arouses me. Nothing excites me. Nothing makes me smile. Nothing real at least.

It has almost been ten months since we broke up. At first, I watched her social media constantly, tracking everything she was doing without me. I saw her post about her new house. I saw her post cocktails with her new friends. I saw her post a mirror photo about her outfit for starting her new job.

Then nothing.

I thought she had blocked me at first. Maybe I was sloppy with my internet stalking and had accidentally liked an old photo to alert her I was watching her every digital move. I asked Haz. He couldn't find her online anymore so I asked Robyn. And Robyn couldn't find her either.

I could understand why she would block me, and Haz too... But Robyn? Even after our break up Y/N and Robyn stayed friends, they'd catch up and call each other and update each other. Then she disappeared.

I used all of my mafia contacts to try and skim the internet for her. They couldn't find any new updates, any new accounts, nothing. She had completely dropped off the face of the universe. Y/N cut me out of her life for the very last time by erasing herself from the internet.

And that was almost five months ago.
That's when my downwards spiral begun.