Man Like Me

Robert woke up with Jarvis licking his face and he smiled tickling his belly as the dog stormed off wanting to play. Robert rolled in his bed and closed his eyes, remembering what had happened last night.



Robert sighed and got out of bed. He put some food on Jarvis’s bowl and made some breakfast for himself.

“What could’ve hurt her so badly?” He wondered as he was standing in his balcony, observing the Nature around him. He heard Jarvis bark and as he leaned he spotted the tiny puppy playing around on the front of the house. Robert tried to think of every possibility for Penelope to be so upset and he wished he could see her today, actually he wish she was there right now so he could try and make everything better. He still had so many things he wanted to know about her and he hoped she had interest in learning more about him too.

Then, Robert got dressed and took Jarvis for a run on the forest, they went until the lake and they stopped there. Robert sat near the shore of the lake and Jarvis laid beside them. They sat there for about an hour as Robert took in the beauty around him and meditated a bit, then he got up to his feet and returned home.

After showering, he made a cup of coffee and opened the door of his office, taking a deep breath as he sat on thedesk and faced the typing machine. He swallowed the lump in his throat and placed a sheet in the typing machine as he zipped a bit of his coffee and started writing.

Robert was a writer, in fact, he was the famous author Tony Stark but he didn’t let anyone know that about him. Only his publicist knew and only because Robert trusted, needed him but mostly because they were best friends. Robert never wanted to be famous, he just wanted to write, so it was a surprise for him when his books became famous but, either way, it was useless for him to reveal his true identity. Most of all he wanted to have a private life.

Robert span in his desk chair and placed his feet on the desk while playing with a Rubik’s cube in his hands. His mind started going back to all the things that had happened to him in the last few years: he had become a successful writer but he had divorced his wife.

Her name was Holly and Robert fell in love with her in college. She was studying to be a lawyer while he was studying Creative Writing and they met at a party. They dated for 5 years, then he proposed and they lived together for 2 years. They never had children because Holly had put her career first, so instead they adopted a dog, Cassey, who gave birth to Jarvis. Not long after their 2 year-anniversary, things started changing. Holly’s work was frustrating her and the fact that Robert could stay home and work made her furious and pick up fights with him constantly, because she thought he was lazy and that she had to support him, when he was the one earning more money from his books and deals instead of her from her cases. He was always a calm but assertive man so he tried to be as understanding as possible, until he started to realize Holly’s true personality. She was very cold, Robert had to commit a lot into their relationship, in order to, please her because he really loved her but nothing was ever good enough for Holly. Then Holly cheated on Robert, he found out and all the feelings and love he had towards her became cold and shattered into pieces. He told her to pack her things and he filed in for the divorce because he couldn’t bear the thought of being with a wowoman that had cheated on him, that was an action he couldn’t either forget or forgive. The divorce took another 2 years to become official because Robert and Holly couldn’t reach an agreement about their houses.

Eventually, Holly married the other guy and had a son with him, which was the first stab she gave Robert in the back. In the end, Holly took their New York City apartment while Robert was left with enough money to buy the house in the forest. Then came the second stab in the back: Holly said that she wanted to take Cassey. Holly was never a fan of dogs so Robert was the one paying attention to them, caring for them and Cassey was his ‘girl’ and Holly only wanted her out of spite. In that moment, Robert felt all the pain and frustration in the world, he shut himself from everything around him and he started living alone which made his loneliness and depression grow dangerously.

Robert spent a year writing like insane, he needed to put his feelings somewhere. He slept 3 hours a day, sometimes he didn’t even sleep. He wrote small things, ripped them apart, wrote again and then threw them away. He broke things, never left his house and then slept for days due to exhaustion. He stopped calling his parents and his family. He went through a very tough period, he suffered but he wanted to come back to himself even if it was slowly, but those who really knew him still felt that he was a bit lost inside himself, he wasn’t totally back yet.

One year after the divorce, Robert got the news that Holly had had a car crash. Holly had never apologized to him and in his mind she was just a bitch who took advantage of him and of his feelings, so he didn’t feel particularly sorry about her state after the crash. She lost her mobility in her right arm and she lost her sight of the left eye as well, her face was permanently damaged too. But Robert’s heart broke again when he heard that Cassey had died in the same car crash. Jarvis was given to him a few days later and they built a very strong bond between them but, deep down, Robert still missed Cassey, she was an amazing dog and they were much attached. But now, he was taking care of her little puppy and something was changing inside of him.

Robert took another zip from his coffee and recalled that after the crash, Holly refused to see him. She said that it would be a victory for him to see her that broken. He could only smirk at that statement. Holly was evil and Robert would never go to her level, he was better off without her.

Then Robert smirked as he remembered and contemplated the vision of Penelope in that pink dress with her straight hair falling across her back. He smiled genuinely and leaned back on the chair again, he was starting to feel amazingly comfortable around her which was unusual in him. He usually had problems with meeting women but Penelope was different.

And just like that, a flow of ideas came to his mind and he began writing.