The only price of Jake’s success is the absence of worry or fear, of happiness or anger. The price of his success is the absence of life.

Jake is dead and he knows it. He knows it when he spends hours organizing his drawers instead of studying, and from the way his friends look at him when they think he doesn’t notice. He knows it when he goes for days on a piece of toast and a banana, and when he smokes alone in his car to force himself to eat. He knows it because he is desperate and ashamed.

Perhaps it will be the shame that causes Jake to change, for better or for worse. Perhaps one day, after an ignominious rot has set into his belly, he will finally see himself for what he has become. He might find the thing inside him that leads him to the illicit and unsavory conquest of his senses, the thing that wants him to die. When Jake finds his shame writhing like a maggot in the dark places of his reflection, he will be forced to do something.