Then it all changed. I got angry, got strong and took the power back.
Nobody ever pushed me around again. As a matter of fact, I started doing the pushing, and when I push you fall down…into the ground, or in between the walls of my apartment building…forever.
You don’t get up. I make sure of it.
That’s why I’m obsessed with my body. Not how I look, but what I can do with it. The looks are an uninteresting byproduct of all the work.
And the gym is also fruitful in other ways, like that schmuck who announced to his lifting buddy he was going to be out of town this month. That allowed me to show up where I know he kennel’s his dogs when he’s away, and borrow the youngest, cutest one for a walk. Too easy.
I should break into his house and rob him just to teach him a lesson. But even if he’s not the sharpest knife in the shed, it doesn’t give me a reason to go after him. My code is my code. I only go after men who go after women too aggressively.
Especially when those women look like my mother, who my father murdered in front of my own eyes the year I was scheduled to graduate high school.
Then my world fell apart. My grades suffered. I lost scholarships. And years later I find myself working the night shift to make ends meet. Yeah, I’ve got some money saved up but I never had a reason to use it.
Now I do. To take that lie I told her about me having a house built right now and making it true.
Not my house. Our house. Because without her I wouldn’t even want it. With her I need it, because what twenty-one-year-old woman on the brink of graduating college is going to accept a third-shift working thirty-seven year old who lives in a windowless sardine can?
None in image-driven Tinseltown, that’s for sure.
But other women don’t matter. Never have, since her.
Which is why I do what I’ve always done. Get on my feet, spin the combo to my lock and open the damn thing, pulling out my phone and calling, not texting, Erica.
It rings and rings and rings.
Hanging up I try right again.
Straight to voicemail.
Has she caught onto me? Is she no longer interested?
Was last night an aberration, a one-off, and something she’s stored away forever, never wanting to see me again?
It doesn’t work that way, beautiful. Not with me. I’m not some college boy. I’m a man.
You better be ready because…I’m coming for you.
6
Erica
Iwake up to a couple of back-to-back missed calls from an unknown number. It’s a local number and doesn’t appear to be a telemarketer, which is a shock, considering nobody’s really blowing up my phone regularly.
Hello?As much as I feel like it has to be Sam I don’t want to get my hopes up, nor do I want to act like I think it’s him because I get that few calls coming in.
Almost instantly I get a response.It’s me. About to hit a new burrito spot. Wanna join?
Sam?
How many guys are you talking to? :( lol
The lol makes me do exactly that, and it pairs well with the frown. You can tell he’s older as he doesn’t use actual emojis, just text.
Victoria’s not the only one with secrets. :0 I can be ready in 30.
See you then.