Fortune Favors
an excerpt

It was catching him making out with another girl in the back room of Taber Lounge that I finally told him I wanted him out. Out of my apartment, out of my bed and most of all, out of my pocketbook. He merely laughed at me. I put both my palms on his shoulders and pushed him into the wall. I wanted to make a point. I wasn’t prepared for his fist to come flying at my face. The rest of the band went dead silent. Someone snickered. I think that’s what hurt most of all. These people who acted like my friends, who slept on my floor and told me how cool I was, didn’t jump to my side when my boyfriend suddenly turned into a monster. I scrambled backwards as Rick started coming at me.

“Get away from me,” I yelled. I kept walking backwards and hit the doorway. He let fly with another hit. I guess the first one didn’t satisfy his rage. His rage at what? His rage as being caught messing around with another girl? I heard my nose crack and my mouth was full of blood.

The blood trickling out of my mouth stopped him cold. It scared him. He reached out to me again, this time his hands were open as if he were apologizing. I wanted to fall into his arms and cry against his chest so badly. It seemed like the right thing to do, but I was still hurt and I knew that this was all wrong. If I learned anything from all those hundreds of self help books I head read, he had crossed the invisible line and nothing would ever be the same.

I must have looked like an idiot. I was stunned into submission. My mouth hung open and blood dripped from my nose into my mouth and down the corner of my mouth to my chin. I couldn’t breath so I choked on my own bodily fluids. Rick was stunned into submission. He stood there staring at his fists that were torn up. Fight bites, I think they’re called I hope they got infected. I hope they got gangrene turned black and had to be amputated at the wrist. That was as far as my rage went, silently wishing his hands would fall off. He opened his hands and opened his arms to me. I sobbed, wanted to fall against his chest and have him hold me until I quit crying and until I quit shaking. Instead I gently placed my hands on his shoulders and kneed him in the groin as hard as I could. I felt his weight drop onto me as his own knees buckled under him. I turned on my heel and started walking to the back door. I grabbed Harry’s gin and tonic and when I got next to the skank Rick had been making out with I threw it in her face.

“Fuck all of you,” I said to the band and the groupies as I strut outside. The band members at least had the decency to look ashamed. The groupies looked down right horrified wondering when it would be their time. We were all disposable. I had learned that the hard way. I heard Rick vomit up the pitcher of beer he had been drinking and heard him cry out the word “bitch” between dry heaves as I entered the alley. I smiled. This felt good. This felt really good.