Revenge

Creative writing fiction piece.

It’s not nice to call someone a b***h. We all know that, and some of us try to mind our manners and mutter something under our breath. Sotto voce, you know? The reality is most of us don’t have a filter and say whatever we damn well feel like saying. Our go to excuse is the infallible “it’s a free country” bit. The classic, “No offense, but…” when we clearly meant to cut them down and ruin their day. And, as of late, “I’m not racist. I have a black president.” All very convenient explanations for the terrible things we say and do to each other. Yet all very useful.

Now, the aforementioned b***h knows that I have a bit of an issue with insulting people or intentionally hurting them and was probably counting on the fact that I would quietly take all her antics as “good fun” and let it go. Can I tell you guys a secret? She was wrong.

“It’s alright,” I said, avoiding her always very directed stare. 

“Are you sure? I feel so bad!” She gave me the well known puppy dog eyes and worked herself up to respectable fake tears.

“Of course. It was just a misunderstanding, right?” Take the bait. Take it, you awful human being. I was almost positive she could hear my thoughts, actually sad that she couldn’t.

She threw her arms around me in an immaculate display of affection. If not for recent events, I would have hugged back much more vigorously.

“Thank you, Alice! You’re such a good friend.”

Holy. S**t. Her fakeness made me want to gag. Is it possible to achieve that level of plastic relief without cracking under the pressure? Then I remembered she was a very good actress. She felt no pressure. She thought she had me under her thumb. Again, so highly mistaken.

She turned and left, her crocodile tears no doubt already dried. It was time to get even, and I enjoyed just thinking about revenge. I didn’t want to make a full time hobby of it because, as you know, I’m not a vindictive person. But at that moment I felt the truth behind the whole “woman scorned” theory. We really are a piece of work. (And no, I don’t mean being made out of some dude’s rib. That s**t is ridiculous.)

I took my twenty dollar phone out of my pocket and texted Hayden to meet me at the supermarket. The thing about Hayden is she considers every task some deadly important mission. One time we had to get first aid cream because her little sister scraped her knee falling off her bike, and she drove to the store like we were battling the rest of the freaking world for the last venomous snake antidote known to man. It’s a little awe inspiring, actually. Anyone with that kind of persistence was definitely who I needed. 

“Alright!” She texted back immediately. “Karma’s a b***h!” Like I said, I would recommend a more subtle approach.

“That’s not enough,” I said. 

“What are you talking about? There’s like, twenty rolls in there.” Hayden fixed her black-rimmed hipster glasses and put the package back on the shelf. 

“I’m not talking about quantity, Hayden. I mean, yeah, we need way more toilet paper than that, definitely. But I need something else. We can’t just teepee her house.”

“When did you get so mean? I love it!” She bounded off to another aisle, leaving me with that wonderful parting line. I wasn’t being mean, Tara was. Well, she had been. And over something like that? It was nauseating.

“Alice!” Hayden’s scream from a few aisles over brought me back to reality. I found her next to the toothpastes and shampoos. What did she want us to do, spike her toothpaste with the shampoo? 

“What is this about?”

“We can, well, clean her car. It’s so dirty, it would be rude of us not to, if you ask me.” She smirked and shook a bottle of shampoo at me, an evil gleam in her eyes. Maybe revenge is some kind of airborne virus, because her words and that gleam infected me. I was energized with the feeling.

“Why stop there?” I grinned along with Hayden as we filled our basket with supplies for sabotage. Yes, I felt a tad childish and immature, but that only fueled the fire. 

We hung around at my place until eight, when we knew Tara’s clichéd, muscled, dim, quarterback boyfriend was picking her up for a date. Then we drove to her house and, on Hayden’s insistence, parked a whole two blocks away to avoid suspicion. I forgot that this whole ordeal was doubling as a quest proportionate to finding the Holy Grail. I clearly should have thought my parking arrangements through.

“There it is.” Hayden ran up to Tara’s car, a brand new Mercedes her parents had bought for her. Of course, the car was sparkling clean, despite what Hayden and I liked to imagine the car really looked like. I took a bottle of vegetable oil out of our stash and began to remodel. 

To my surprise, Hayden and I were done long before I thought we would be. My plan had been meticulous destruction of Tara’s most prized asset. Slow, rhythmic, tedious defilement. Yet the forty rolls of toilet paper originally meant for her house were strewn all over her car, oil streaking down the windows, gaudy bumper stickers placed anywhere but the implied location, post it notes covering the wheels… As Hayden would say, mission complete. However, I didn’t feel so satisfied.

I stood there frowning at the vehicle and Hayden studied me, her brows slightly furrowed.

“What’s wrong? You did it.”

I looked up at her and attempted a smile. “Yeah, I guess. Maybe it’s not enough. I don’t feel good yet.”

Before Hayden could respond, we were bathed in a pair of headlights. A shiny, red SUV parked beside our completed mission. I recognized the car and realized we were totally screwed. Tara stepped out of the passenger side, took in the sight of her car, of me and Hayden standing there with no possible excuse and she went ballistic.

“Alice! What the hell is this? Are you out of your mind? Clean that s**t off now!”

“I’m so sorry, Tara. I don’t take orders from you. And I’m sure as hell done taking your bullshit,” I told her. At this point, her boyfriend had joined our happy conversation.

“What did Tara ever do to you?”

I snorted. “Stay out of this, quarterback.”

“His name is Jason.” Tara practically spat at me. 

“Whatever his name is, he obviously doesn’t know what a b***h you are. You could have just ruined my life and you don’t even care!” Hayden’s scream cut me off. I’d forgotten she was there while Tara and I were going at each other. Looking over the car, I saw Jason pointing a knife at Hayden, who was sobbing loudly and repeating the word “no”. He grabbed her wrist and yanked, forcing her to slam into his chest, turned her around and held her there.

“Jesus Christ! Tara, call off your man-dog. This was my idea, not hers. And if you’ve forgotten, she’s your friend too.” I was trying to diffuse the danger element of the situation, but Tara continued to stand there and Jason didn’t let go of Hayden.

“You’re not very good at being bad, Alice. I thought you said we were fine. That it was a misunderstanding, right?”

“No!” My mouth literally dropped. Did she need to be committed? “Tara, you put the answers to the SAT in my bag and made sure the proctor found them! You know no college is going to accept a cheater. You put my future at risk, all I did was ensure a really expensive cleaning bill that you won’t even pay for! Are you serious? And you don’t even mind if Hayden gets hurt?” 

I could see a white line on Hayden’s throat where Jason was pressing the blade. If he put any more pressure on it, he was going to cut her. 

“Tara! Tell him to stop!” A few tears escaped my eyes, knowing I could never forgive myself if Hayden was the one who got hurt. What was he even doing with a knife? This whole thing was ridiculous.

“Jason, stop.” At Tara’s command, he dropped Hayden, who ran to me. She had stopped crying, but was still breathing heavily. I looked at Tara staring at us wistfully, as if she missed being part of our friendship. 

“Maybe I’m not good at revenge, but at least I don’t suck at being a friend. Have fun on your date.”

With that, we left and she let us. I was never really sure why our conflict had ended so melodramatically. If anything, Tara definitely had a flair for theatrics and knew I considered myself too decent a person to contradict her. So, it flummoxed both me and Hayden the way Tara let us leave without another word, or without gracing herself with the last word. 

“I’ve had enough for one night,” Hayden said softly next to me. We’d made it back to my house and were lying wide awake in my bed. Hayden kept touching her neck, making sure it was indeed still in tact. I had no physical mark to fuss over, but the emotional trauma would probably give me nightmares.

“Ditto, kiddo.” Our old catchphrase made her laugh and the whole evening was made better for it. 

“Promise me something, Alice.”

“What?” I’d gladly give her my kidney at this point.

“No more b*****s.” 

“Deal.” 

Reviews

[Tree]

A well written piece full of tension, yet, there was a dry humor to it that I really enjoyed. Excellent grammar, and your dialogue was fantastic. Also like the way you finished, too. It was open ended, a strong message.