AnguiSH by Lila Felix Page A

heard her words but I staggered, thinking it was her quick wit or her infamous smartassery.
                  “Oh yeah, with who?”  Two could play this game.
                  “Why do you care Breaker?  You’ve been doing a damned fine job of pretending I don’t exist for a week.   What, you got a little lonely and saw me coming in like this and thought you’d take a cheap shot?  Never mind, it doesn’t matter, I’ve got to get ready.”
                  She left me there, the nausea scaling the walls of my esophagus and my legs swayed as it sunk in. 
                  I was too late.  I was stuck, in the hell of my mind and this house.  I’d lost her.  I’d lost her—before I even had her.
                  I sat on the couch for longer than I’d thought because before I knew it, I heard her bedroom door open.  I scrambled to find the remote and turned the TV on before she came into the room.  I heard her fumbling with something in the kitchen but I pretended to nonchalantly flip channels. But I could see her in my peripheral.  She wore a red off the shoulder shirt and a pair of jeans that made me concerned for the arteries in her legs and for my own loss of heartbeat.  Her hair was down and messy. 
                  I wanted it to be me.  I wanted her to be getting dressed for me.

              Ash
                 
     
                  I panicked.  I panicked and then I lied.  I panicked, I lied and then I had to find a way to either get out of said lie or admit that I lied.  Yeah, that wasn’t gonna happen.
                  So I acted out of desperation.  I shamelessly fumbled through the trash, looking for one of those damned cups.  I found it and prayed Ozark had been coy enough to put his phone number on my coffee cup—again.  And God bless him, he was.  And when I called he responded to me eagerly.
                  At this point, so embarrassed, I was willing to call Stephanie and get her to meet me somewhere and call it a date.  Ozark didn’t hesitate to make a date with me. 
                  I got dressed, frustrated and angry. And I put on an outfit sure to get both of their attention. I didn’t want to go on this date.  I didn’t have an ounce of attraction to Ozark but I couldn’t just wait around here for Breaker to decide what he wanted.  One minute he is in my car, making great strides and turning my insides to goo.  And next, he ignores me?  I couldn’t live that way.  I wouldn’t live that way.               
                  I walked into the kitchen looking for a pair of scissors to cut off a tag from my new jeans.  I was louder than I should’ve been, slamming the drawers open, thrashing through the contents, and then knocking them closed with my hip.  I saw him on the couch, scrolling through the channels as if he hadn’t spent the last week making my job feel more like indentured servitude.
                  I checked my phone and it was now a little after seven.  I wondered if Ozark had stood me up, that would actually serve me right.  But a few seconds later the doorbell rang.  I walked through the living room to answer the door.  I heard Breaker say, “He’s late.  No respect.”
                  I stopped to glare at him, “You would know.”
                  I answered the door and Ozark came in while I got my phone and my purse.  He didn’t even tell me I looked nice or anything.  He just squirmed like he had someplace better to be.  Breaker continued to stare at the TV, pressing the controls on the remote aggressively.  I ignored him the best I could and Ozark and I left for the movies.
                  My disdain of the date, the person and the event, began in the car.  He had the music up so loud that we couldn’t even talk.  He