Abbie rose from the couch when she heard the key rattle in the lock and the thump of Troy’s boots hitting the floor. It was two in the morning. Troy staggered into their apartment, mumbling a slurred story about pub night with the boys. Abbie put his arm around her shoulder, and together they stumbled toward the bathroom like a three-legged octopus. Troy threw up into the sink and passed out with his head jammed between the toilet and the bathtub. Abbie cajoled and tugged for thirty minutes before dragging Troy to bed.
She rescued his cell phone from the bathroom floor, and it vibrated in her hand. Her heart skipped a beat when she read the text message:
Hey Big Boy 🙂
You were marvelous yesterday.
See you next Tuesday
Ginger
It can’t be true.
Tuesday was Abbie’s night to have dinner with her parents.
Abbie quivered as the shock of betrayal racked her body. She shuffled into the living room and sank to the floor, sobbing. As she rocked on the living room carpet, Abbie scrolled through the lewd messages on his cell phone, left by Ginger, Tiffany, Amber, Samara, Brooke, and Kylie.
After setting the phone on the coffee table, Abbie plodded into the kitchen, staring at her painted pink toenails. She put the kettle on for tea.
She drew the butcher knife from the set her parents had given them as a pre-engagement present, and tested the edge with her thumb, drawing a thin line of blood.
It would be the simplest thing to plunge the twelve-inch blade into his cheating, naked back or perform a Lorena Bobbitt amputation.
What would it feel like to wrap her fingers around his neck until his lying lips turned blue and his black two-timing tongue hung as limp as his overworked dick?
The kettle’s shrill whistle startled her from her black thoughts of murder. Her shoulders slumped. She couldn’t do it. She wasn’t a killer.
As she sipped her cup of Earl Grey, Abbie considered all the clever things she’d say to Troy when he woke up. The cutting remarks, the insults, the snappy jibes. But she knew that when the time came to confront him, her tears would wash away her resolve, and she’d choke on her prepared remarks.
Troy would shrug, make excuses, and twist the conversation until it was her fault.
Abbie couldn’t kick him out because the apartment’s lease was in his name, and if she walked out, he’d move in Ginger or a Ginger clone with bigger boobs. Troy would move on, but Abbie knew she would struggle unless she had closure. She didn’t kid herself into thinking Troy would change, although he’d swear on a stack of bibles he would.
Troy’s phone blasted “Macho Man,” and one of Troy’s corny lines popped into her head — what would Chuck Norris do? She hung up on the caller.
What will Abbie Ann Sugarman do?
From the pit of her gut erupted a howl of rage. Abbie grabbed Troy’s souvenir pillow from their trip to Myrtle Beach and pounded it into a pancake. She wiped her nose on the destroyed cushion, threw it into the toilet, and marched into the bedroom.
While Troy snored and tossed in his sleep, she shoved her clothes and personal items into the suitcases she’d bought for last year’s Mexican vacation.
Let Ginger and the gaggle of sluts keep Troy, the useless piece of crap.
She texted her cousin Bethany and called a Yellow Cab.
Before she went out the door, she grabbed Troy’s phone and sent all his female contacts the same text.
MARRY ME
On her way down to the taxi, she dropped Troy’s cell down the garbage chute.
She laughed during the entire trip to Bethany’s place.
The driver threw concerned looks into the mirror. “Are you okay, miss?”
Abbie Sugarman was fine and getting better every minute.
Dick Noble is a Calgary writer whose non-fiction has appeared in the major US and Canadian outdoor magazines. His short story and flash fiction have been published by Close To the Bone, The Scarlet Leaf Review, and in the anthology Blood on the Holly. He is a member of the Alexandra Writer’s Society and frequently critiques on the theScribophile Website.
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