Studio 30+ Prompt writing -Little Red Riding in the Hood

 I've recently joined Studio 30+ to help kick my writing up a lot of notches, make some contacts and get some feedback. I wrote this piece on the fly this afternoon, in response to the Studio 30+ prompts for the week, which were Apple and/or Infection.  Please don't judge it too harshly. I have no idea where it's going, or even where it came from (other than my brain). It is simply a literal use of the prompts that i wrote in an hour. So... phew... nervous much? I am! Here you go. 

Little Red Riding in the Hood

As she cruised down Main Street in her candy apple red convertible she looked for him on the sidewalks while she drove. “He has to be here”, she thought, “has to, damn it. I need to finish this once and for all”. She turned down the radio and tapped the brakes a bit, hoping that slowing down would help her spot him more easily. “Where is he?” Her ma’s words from their telephone conversation that morning went through her mind. “You listen to me Mary-Kathleen Mahoney, some boyos aren't worth the trouble, they think only of themselves and are selfish runts.”  “I know ma” MK said.  “And then there’s some,” her ma continued, “well, there’s some that are just rotten to the core. Like that Scott who broke your heart. Best thing that ever happened to you was when he left ya. Cause those rotten ones, well they end up doing more than heart breaking and nothing ever can be changed with ‘em. Like something’s missing inside where their feelings should be. As if they have some sort of infection that makes them dead in the soul. He was a psychopath for sure. “

Leave it to Ma to watch one too many Dr. Phil shows, so she thinks she’s an armchair psychiatrist, thought MK. God, dramatic much, ma? Though, as she looked for the ‘psychopathic’ Scott on the sidewalks of Main Street, MK wondered if there wasn’t a little truth to what her Ma was preaching.  He’d been different, so aloof and above it all, when she’d met him 18 months before. Truth be told, that’s probably why she was attracted to him at first. Only now, when she thought back to their relationship, could she see the pieces of the puzzle that didn't quite fit. Those last few months they were together, he would go from happy to angry in the drop of a dime. Drape his arm across her shoulders in a loving hug that would get just a bit too tight as he told her what she had done wrong that day. And it seemed she had always done something wrong. Scott made MK feel like she was never quite enough… not smart enough, or thin enough or pretty enough.  His parting words were “You’re fat and ugly and no one will ever want to be with you. Christ MK, you can’t even have kids.” She still remembered the pain of that proclamation, she remembered believing it too. As if surviving ovarian cancer should make her less of a person, less of a woman. 

MK had spent the last 6 months, since the breakup with Scott, transforming herself. She hadn't answered his calls or even run into him on the street. He had no idea she’d gone from frump to fabulous. Watching what she ate, and working out every day. She had taken up running and was up every morning to put in 5 miles before her day started.  She’d grown her short hair out and colored it a more reddish brown to play up her green eyes.  And with each pound lost, each mile run, MK had started to find herself.  She’d started to appreciate herself more and find her confidence again. “Screw you, Scott,” MK said out loud to herself, “You’ll see what you lost, what you threw away. And you’ll be the one who regrets it, until the day you die.”

Mary-Kathleen Mahoney had no idea just how right she was, because in less than 24 hours, psychopath or not, Scott would be dead and she would be the one who killed him.