Wicked in Love

Chapter 5 - and yours

Dedicated to my very kind and very patient and just the best readers ever!

Kara

I was about to make a huge mistake.

I have one or three of them I regret every year or so and looked at them as a kind of subscription fee I had to pay for breathing the air and enjoying gravity on this Earth. Thank God they weren't a monthly thing.

I had weighed the risks on what I was about to do, the pros and cons, and I was sure I might get it right this time. Besides, it didn't matter whether I go through with this or not, I assured myself, because the thing I would lose would come back. It would always come back.

Dramatically, I raised the scissors in the air and, with all the conviction in the world, took a deep breath.

And snipped my bangs.

It wouldn't cut all the way. "Motherfucker."

I howled in horror when I noticed a few strands flying in the air, then closed my eyes. When I opened them, I discovered my bangs looked like a jagged letter J lying on its side. I willed the wheel of time to turn around.

"It's fine, it's fine. If I swept it to the side, it's not even noticeable."

The important thing here was the length. As long as it could still blend with my hair and not reveal half of my long ass forehead, it was fine.

One down. Two huge mistakes to go this year, huh?

Before I could decide what to do next, my cellphone honked a text. Taking it as divine intervention, I put the scissors down and picked up my phone.

Damon: Huge favor. Please bring my blue towel and spare shirt? It's in my bay. Bottom drawer beside my huge red not blue toolbox. Here at Adam's Bridge. Join us. Free beer. Will wait.

My phone honked again.

Damon: PLEASE HAVE MERCY DARLING KARA

I rolled my eyes. My childhood best friend, Damon, the gorgeous drifter, the mechanic, the singer, the handyman, recently came back home. Usually, he'd only be gone a few months at a time, but this time he'd stayed away longer. I wasn't sure what kind of demons he was running away from this time. Or chasing. And I worried about him.

I had no idea when he'd takeoff again, so sprinkling some mercy, I replied that he was lucky I was still in our auto shop, and I could deliver the items he'd asked for.

Then I paused, gripped my phone against my chest.

Will he be there? The shadow that crept on my porch the other night. Like the Prince of Darkness from an old black and white horror film, he would mysteriously appear in a cloud of smoke when I least expected it. Just the thought of him wreaked havoc inside me, and I hated it.

The invite posted on social media came from the basketball team, so there was a chance that he might show up. But I knew he wouldn't be there. Like Shrek, he never liked crowds.

I had nothing to do with him anymore. Whether he was there or not would not matter to me at all. At all, I thought as I reapplied my lip gloss. He was like the pieces of eggshells from a boiled egg you peeled. The rotten outer leaf of lettuce you discard. The annoying sticker that wouldn't peel and left traces of glue on a new picture frame. Irrelevant.

I remembered how my heart used to skip a beat whenever he was around. It was pretty dead now though. Then I looked up and stared at my reflection in the mirror.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

My puffy eyes mocked me. They were still a little swollen from the crying jag I had that night he oozed out of his portal and on my doorstep.