Revenge

This excerpt was originally written and posted to my former blog on February 10, 2012

Cold pellets of rain from a late spring thunderstorm pushed the crowd from their seats, shoving us into the innards of the ball stadium two walks into the bottom of the fifth. Plastered up against a brick wall, David and I stood shoulder to shoulder each assessing the damage the rain did to our clothes, hair, mood.

I laughed trying to put a positive spin on getting caught in a monsoon. “Movies are bull-shit. Getting caught in the middle of a rainstorm is not sexy, especially in this crowd.” A large-bellied man next to me belched loudly, then yelled to his wife to grab him another beer.

David didn’t answer. He grunted, crossing his arms.

“I guess it will be a fun story to tell the girls.” David stayed silent. Shaking my head, pulling my jacket tighter around my body, I turned away from him. When the beer-gut guy’s wife moved to fetch a drink, that is when I saw him. Yves.

Leaning against a railing by the escalators he was smiling - flirting?- with a waitress from the stadium’s Fan’s Club. She wasn’t beautiful, maybe pretty. Yves said something and they both erupted into unabashed laughter. A couple people looked their way.

I moved closer to the wall so he wouldn’t see me. I did not have any reason to worry about the waitress. I had no room to judge Yves. Nonetheless, bile collected in the base of my throat. I tried to be rational, casual - personality traits that were not exactly common for me. But tonight I let one rational thought enter my conscious. The waitress worried me with the one quality that she had that I could not compete with. She was available. Unattached. Sans husband.

I looked over my shoulder at David. Eyes closed, leaning against the brick wall, dozing in his blameless world, completely unaware that the man I was screwing behind his back stood less than 50 feet away. Would he even care? Did I care?

I touched his shoulder, startling him. “What?” he grumbled.

Intentions are delicate plans. They can be twisted, chewed up and spit out in distorted ways depending upon the conditions in which they are set. Touching David, my intentions were guided by my desire to be normal again. Not deceitful, impassionate. But the grumble of his voice echoed the thunderstorm raging outside, reminding me that the bridge between the two of us was nearly irreparable.

David had ripped my heart into shreds so long ago - his fault. I refused to let him repair it no matter how hard he tried - my fault. When I thought that I was coping, I was merely shutting down. When my body shut down completely it opened the door to revenge. Revenge who was flirting with a mediocre waitress. Revenge who did not understand how he was being used.

I removed my hand from his shoulder, the reality of how far I had fallen and what had truly been lost seized my stomach. I tried to break away from the crowd, turning around I took two steps before the thunder roared and I vomited all over the beer guy’s shoes.