Miscreations by Michael Bailey

Author:Michael Bailey [Bailey, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Written Backwards
Published: 2020-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

Only Bruises Are Permanent

Scott Edelman

After Amanda broke her lover’s wrist, but before she broke his legs …

After she threw him out of her apartment, but before she threw him out of her apartment window …

She found herself in a tattoo parlor, not entirely sure how she’d gotten there. She was alone, studying the art pinned to the walls, having made up her mind, while at the same time unable to make up her mind.

Which wasn’t at all how she’d intended to spend that evening.

What she’d planned, what she’d expected, was nothing more than a home-cooked dinner with Jim, followed by a movie—a romantic comedy she hoped, if she could sway him from yet another action movie—with some cuddling on the couch while they watched. Which would lead to more than just cuddling, and mean, as usual, they’d never get to see the end of that movie. Which was the way she liked it. Or if not, well, liked their long-established routine, at least gotten used to it in a way that was oddly comfortable.

All of which should have had her asleep by then, but instead, there she was—her muscles sore and growing even more so from the incident which had occurred earlier—as she paced after midnight under fluorescent lights along a wall of skulls and sea serpents, of butterflies and flames, considering, rejecting, wondering which symbol the long-simmering confrontation that had brought her there called for.

She’d been cleaning up from the meal she’d prepared after a long day of work as a court reporter—clearing the table, bagging the leftovers for the next day’s lunch she’d planned to tote along, scraping the dishes before sliding them into the washer—when she happened to look over at Jim—

Jim who’d done nothing all day but hang around her place and play video games since his own apartment was a sty—

Jim who hadn’t bothered looking for a job in months—

Jim who never thought to ask if she needed help—

Jim who wasn’t even that good in bed—

And thought …

No.

No more.

It wasn’t any one thing which had planted that thought there.

It was just … time.

It was just … enough.

So she’d asked him what she’d never dared ask him before, to make a choice. To come over by her side and help—or go home.

And then he’d said what he’d never dared say before—or not said, really, because he only laughed … and somehow things got physical.

Somehow.

Just like the somehow which had gotten her to the tattoo parlor.

She’d found herself hurling that final plate in her hands like a frisbee, which rained peas as it whizzed by Jim’s head before shattering against a closet door (though perhaps it had ricocheted off one of his ears first, she was no longer sure, it was all a blur by then), after which he stopped laughing. And then was up, pinning her arms to her sides. Soon they were bouncing off the walls, the glass over her family photos cracking as the frames dropped to the hardwood floors, the two of them continuing to ricochet until she heard a crack, followed by Jim’s scream.

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