Super

Chapter 8: Endings

Lex swayed on the handrail in the metro, grinning crazily at her own reflection in the glass doors of the train. Her longing to see Kurt had left her completely restless, so she tried to calm herself by thinking about what they might do over the weekend. She’d shower and change once she got home, maybe call him at work to let him know she’d arrived, and then when he got home...

Lex realized the train ride had ended as she heard her stop being called, and she quickly tripped out of the train. Heading to the escalator out of the metro, she bounded up, sometimes two stairs at a time, laughing.

Several minutes later, after having hurried down the sidewalks and run up all five flights of stairs, Lex arrived, winded, at the front door of the condo she and Kurt shared. She fumbled for her keys in her purse, trying to find where she’d left them after two weeks of disuse, and eventually eased the door open. To her confusion, she heard voices inside.

She froze and listened. Actually, it was one voice: Kurt's. Her heart leapt, and again she grinned to herself. Lex quietly eased inside and shut the door silently. She began creeping down the long front hall, determined to surprise her fiancé. His voice began to resolve into words.

“No, no, it's a fair trade. Probably more than fair; it's my dream job.”

Lex heard the slight buzz of the person on the other end of the phone responding to Kurt’s earlier statement as she moved about halfway down the hall.

“No, it's really not that bad to have to break things off with Lex in exchange. I can always find someone else, but I will miss the sex.”

Feeling as if she’d been lanced through by an iron bar dropped from the ceiling, Lex froze a few feet before the end of the hallway. Her suddenly dry mouth tasted harshly of dust and defeat.

“I know she doesn’t look it, but she really is a good fuck! I’ve been thinking for a while, though, that I’d have to break things off with her eventually. She's just so weird sometimes, and those scars!”

Kurt laughed then, the sound causing Lex's guts to wrench. Her forehead had broken out in a sweat, and she still felt frozen to the spot, unable to talk or move.

“You should have seen how much trouble it was to find a dress for her that didn't show those nasty things off! If it's all right, though, I think I'll wait a couple of months until the official break up...you know, I can't take you being away all the time, that sort of thing. At least until then I know I can still get laid every other weekend.”

Lex could hear the murmuring response of the person on the other end of the phone, and it sounded amazingly loud in her ears now. Her body had started to move again, and she shook with adrenaline. The anger that had settled in her head felt like the fast-forward replay of a fiery bud blooming into a monstrous, poisonous red flower. Everything else seemed to move in slow motion around her as she covered the final feet of the dimly lit hallway and entered the sunny kitchen to face her former lover, who’d been sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of tea along with his conversation. She came in so quickly that he only had time to register her presence before she spoke.

Lex wrenched the engagement ring off her finger and launched it in his general direction. “You rot in hell, you fucking asshole.”

She watched as his expression finally changed as he realized what her presence there might mean, but much too late. Lex saw her carelessly tossed ring spin in the air, and watched the diamond or the prong open an inch long cut under one of Kurt’s cheekbones as it sailed past him to land on the floor. Before the blood started flowing Lex had turned, still shaking with fury, one hand in a fist so tight her fingernails pierced her palm.