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.
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