100-Farewell Reception
**XAVER**
My anger pot, which is always on a low simmer, boils over, splashing the top of my skull like greasy sausages in a microwave.
I don’t need to ask if the story is true. The lies Pippa has kept back flit over her face and cloud her eyes.
The woman I trusted with my heart has betrayed me.
Just like *sleeping-with-the-enemy* Sonia and *gold-digging* Gia.
I thought Pippa was above all the subterfuge.
Apparently not.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I couldn’t care less about the reason. It won’t change what she did. It won’t fix the damn duplicity.
I feel like a fool.
And *no one* gets away with making me feel like that.
“Xaver… I.” She swallows thickly and opens her mouth again. Nothing comes out, except a lot of hot air.
I chuckle darkly. “You are never at a loss for words, Pippa. Why don’t you spin something that sounds remotely like a good excuse?”
*There isn’t one I can think of—not if she’s known for weeks.*
I start the car as if that will build a wall between us. The grinding of the engine and the squeal of the wheels show how pissed I am. A woman with a young kid gives me the finger for my erratic driving when we peel from the parking lot.
Never have I wanted distance from a person like I do now. I can’t get rid of her fast enough. The confines of the car bear down, choking me. I can’t look at her… I don’t *want to* look at her. If I were to smell her lavender scent, my stomach would hurl from my throat.
As it is, my gut rumbles and pounds, like a lightning storm full of dark clouds and heavy rain.
I roll the window down an inch. I will take the smog rather than smell a hint of her.
“Xaver—” she starts, and I cut that shit off quick. I thought I wanted to hear her answer, but I don’t. Why bother? It will just be another piece of information she has kept back.
“Don’t. I don’t want to hear it.” Humiliation, anger,* betrayal,* from not one but both the women I gave my heart to, Pippa and Sonia, eats at me like acid, tainting my perception of what is right and just in the world.
Nothing is sacred.
Everything is fucked.
“I’m moving my trip to Germany up. I’ll leave right after the launch.”
*We were going to Paris. I was going to give her a damn ring.*
My anger builds like a pawnshop balance. A steady climb of shitty feelings. “By the time I get back, your ninety days will have ended.” Flicking a dagger in her direction, I say, “I hope you won’t use the legal termination of your contract to file a grievance.”
She sucks in air. Her breathing, already shallow, turns into small gasps.
The little popping sounds grate on my last nerve.
She starts in again. “Xaver, p-please let me explain.”
I whirl so suddenly that she flinches back, holding her stomach. Tears leak from her eyes, smearing the makeup on her face.
The blobs resemble my hopes and dreams.
“Explain what, Pippa? Explain how you lied? How you betrayed me? How you allowed me to think you… *loved* me?” My throat is raw with the burn, the *sting,* of her lies.
*She took you for a ride, Sayle.*
Pippa shrinks back like a turtle in its shell, turning her head to stare out the window, her shoulders hunched against the coldness of my frozen heart.
*Are we over?*
I don’t know.
All I see now is red. A crimson tide swims behind my eyes and clouds my judgment.
*I can’t fucking think, I’m so pissed.*
It is good she is quiet. If I hear one more shit-ass excuse, I will pull over, open the door, and take my chances on the expressway.
Sonia lied. Pippa lied. Gia… a damn bitch, to be sure, but at least she was honest.
All three women I was in a relationship with for more than a few weeks have turned out to be consummate tricksters.
None of them loved me. They may have said it, but it was as false as a spring day in winter. It *always* turns cold, spoiling your plans for a picnic by the beach.
“Xaver, I didn’t lie to you. I kept back what I knew.”
*Is she still trying?*
*Trying* to smooth over her role in this fucked-up night, which has totally screwed with my life?
My anger goes nuclear. I want to smash, break, *scream… *so loud my eardrums pop and my voice box breaks.
I become a monster, one that dwells in the deep, dark recesses of my mind. A bad mofo that makes the arrogant prick in me run for cover.
*I want to wound her. I want to see her bleed;* it calls.
And it is all too easy to let it have free rein.
“Oh, I see, you wanted to…” I take my hands from the wheel to make clawed air quotes. “*Keep back* what you knew. Like that time, you* kept back* being a virgin, or that time you* kept back* you worked for Justice.”
Her silence, her *refusal* to interrupt my tirade allows my mouth to go off into a realm no man has ever gone before. My voice changes into a dead man’s rasp, my lips twist in a sneer, and my eyes shoot green poison at her shrunken frame.
“I bet you also* kept back* the real reason you had gotten arrested. It wasn’t because of a misunderstanding, was it? Just admit it. You *meant* to steal that check.”
Her eyes go as round as dinner plates.
She lifts her balled hand, slowly.
If she slaps me, like Gia did, tonight will end in sulfuric flames.
She doesn’t.
She holds her hand against her mouth and *crumples* before my eyes, like a piece of used paper towel.
Her voice comes out thinner than scritta paper. “I think it is best if you drop me off at my apartment.”
“That’s a damn good idea,” I respond, even as the back of my mind screams, *Is it? Is it really*
I ignore my fucking conscience and drive on.