DaGyrlRemarqabL - Car Trouble

"I can't believe this shit," he said as she climbed in beside him and the doors of the car shut on each side. He shot her a look of irritation as he stabbed the keys in the ignition. "Three years we've been together, Kristin, three fucking years," he yelled drunkenly, "and you still act like this." She stared coldly out the window into the black night. In her mind she replayed everything she had seen as blurs of blackened landscape passed by at dangerous speeds, trying to convince herself that she wasn't crazy. She saw him across the room, leaning in over a woman in a short, cherry colored gown, whispering words in her ear that made the edges of her mouth curl up to her ear lobes, trying subtly to slide his hand under the hem of her skirt. She snapped out of it and looked up to see he had pulled into a gas station, probably to get cigarettes since the tank was nearly full. She watched intently as he exited the store and made his way back to the car. "Who is she?" Kristin said, no sooner than he had situated himself in his seat preparing to start the engine. "Who is who?" he yelled. "The woman at the party. The one you were all over. You knew her." He shook his head in disbelief, "Christ. She's just a woman, I don't fucking know." "You DO know," she shot back at him, smacking the cigarette out of his hand and away from his lips where had it perched and ready to be lit. He felt he was about to reach his boiling point and it took everything he had to restrain himself from reaching across the seat and hitting her.
"You're crazy, bitch, you know that?"
"I am crazy," she said as she started to cry, "…crazy for being with you this long."
"Kristin, if I wanted to be with other women, I would. I wouldn't stay with you. Yet here I am! Putting up with this bullshit because you can't trust me. Every woman I so much as cross paths with is a suspect. It's fucking ridiculous." Her eyes filled with rage and tears as she looked over to him. "I'm tired of it, I really am. The shit aint right," he said in a low voice. Kristin started to second guess herself as all of his rebuttals rang in her ears. Maybe she was over-reacting, maybe she hadn't seen what she thought she had, maybe she was just paranoid. She slinked closer to his seat in attempt to lean her head on his chest, "I'm sorry, baby" she said softly, but he stared intently on the road before him and repeated, "shit aint right..." under his breath. "You know what?" he said calmly, as she picked up her head and looked up at him, "I've had enough of this shit. You can't trust me. I can't do right by you no matter what I do, so what the fuck is the point?" he yelled. "I said I was sorry," she exclaimed, "baby, you're right, I apologize, I shouldn't have accused you of anything!" she started to panic, anticipating his next words like he were a judge in a courtroom preparing to tell of her verdict. "You're right, you shouldn't have," he said, "and you won't again."

The black sedan swerved dangerously into the parking lot. Like snow, a mist of darkness lightly coated the many cars that rested there silently, illuminated by the creeping white fog of a single street light. The hour, which was 3 AM, emptied the area and made it devoid of people, all of whom were probably inside their apartments fast asleep. The car stopped abruptly in the last row of the lot, furthest from the building. The windows were tinted and coated with condensation from the humidity. Muffled yelling filled the inside and leaked out of the cracks of the car doors. Insects scurried out of the way as the door opened suddenly and she stepped out, hurriedly sliding her skirt down to its proper length and leaning her head back in the passenger side to plead with him. "Please..." she said, tears erupted from her light eyes and streamed down her shadowy face. He grew impatient, taking a hold of both her tiny wrists and pushing her forcefully back out of the way of the door as he slammed it shut. She quickly rebounded and flung her hands on the window, as though somehow her slim fingers would be strong enough to keep this car from pulling away from her. "Please don't do this," she cried, and her hands slid in the moisture as he peeled off and left her limbs to fall to her sides, dripping wet from her fingertips, as she stood in a stunned silence until sobs from the deepest place inside her shattered the peace.

Speeding along angrily in the black sedan, he had nearly reached his destination when his cell rang and he fumbled in his center console to grab it. "Babygirl calling..." flashed on the screen as he rolled his eyes and muttered, "Here we go." He kept one hand on the wheel as he flipped open the phone and hit the button to ignore the call. He tossed it on the seat beside him. No sooner than he had silenced it, it rang again. He reached to turn up the radio and tune it out. A few minutes later he pulled into the driveway of a small dark house and shut the engine off. As he swung one leg out of the door his phone rang again. He snatched it feverishly and flipped it open. "WHAT?" There was nothing on the other line but the sound of "babygirl" taking short, violent breaths, as she cried uncontrollably. "What do you want, huh?" Still she managed nothing but pants and soft sobs. He rolled his eyes as he had broken up with her many times before and was numb to her pain and used to upsetting her. "It's over. Do you hear me? I said it's OVER. WE'RE OVER. " The sound of her crying became more crisp. He stepped out of the car, holding the phone to his ear as he closed and locked the door. "Please, Mark, don't hang up," she whispered, a barely audible plead that escaped through the tears. He paused before walking up the driveway. "Look, you can cry all you want," he said, "but stop calling." The dim light of the front porch flickered on as he hung up and cut through the grass to greet a blonde haired woman in a short red dress who waited seductively. As he neared she extended the storm door open to him and they grinned at one another. "I thought you said you'd be here earlier," said the woman. "I had some car trouble..." he said and he put his cell phone on silent and shoved it deep in his pocket, never giving his "babygirl" a second thought.

Mark's eyes opened suddenly and he stared at the shadowy ceiling of the damp room. To his left laid the blonde haired woman, the red dress she wore earlier crumpled in an elegant mess on the floor by the bed. He kicked the warm blankets off of his hot body and turned to look at his lover. He placed his hand on her arm as she rested with her back to him. He lowered his lips to plant a kiss on her shoulder when he caught a glimpse of her sleeping face and was taken aback. Her lashes were short and tangled, not long and full like those of his babygirl's. Her lips were thin and pink, not thick and crimson. Her hair was short and dull, not long and shiny. Her skin was pale and freckley, not smooth and buttery. He suddenly became aware of the throbbing inside of his head which was the beginning of the hang over he had certainly earned earlier that night. He plucked his shorts from the carpet and pulled them on quickly as he crept into the kitchen. He grabbed the bottle of aspirin from the cabinet and poured himself some water. As he was swallowing, his eyes landed on his blue jeans which were still on the floor in the living room where the woman had so anxiously pulled them off hours before. He placed the glass on the counter and went to retrieve his cell phone from his pants pocket. He expected to see about a thousand missed calls from Kristin. However, when he flipped open the phone he discovered there were no missed calls from her at all. He sat down slowly on the leather sofa, staring at the screen of the phone as though it were malfunctioning. "That's strange," he said to himself. He knew how she acted during times like this. She would have ran in her apartment, flung herself on the bed, and called his phone incessantly in what were, most of the time, vain attempts to get him to change his mind. And yes, he'd tell her to stop calling, like he had this night, but she'd never listen. She'd keep calling. And he would ignore her, often busy digging deep inside a woman he'd just met, while she stayed up all night blaming herself and her insecurities for driving off the man she was so desperately in love with. But Mark had reached that point. That sudden moment that always pounced upon him when the moans had quieted and his filling of a strange woman ultimately left him empty again. This is when he thought of his “babygirl.” How completely loving and ignorant, she would be waiting for him when he decided he wanted to have her, how her soft chest would still cave for him in the place he always rested his head.

But for the first time in years, he felt a hollow pit open up in his stomach as he realized she hadn't called all evening after he'd told her to stop. Had she grown wise to his ways? Had she convinced herself she was better off without him? He couldn't stand the thought of it. He dressed quickly and left the house even more eagerly than he had entered it. He got in his car and started the engine immediately, abandoning the small dark house and driving towards the lights of the highway. Weaving through the randomly scattered cars on the expressway, he dialed her number and waited for her to answer. It was now almost 5:30 in the morning. After six rings the call was forwarded to her voicemail. He took the phone from his ear angrily, confused as to why she wasn't jumping on the phone as soon as the caller ID revealed his name. Ready to hang up, he changed his mind, and brought the phone back to his ear at the last minute. "Kris...baby..I know you're mad at me, but I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything I said earlier. I needed some time to think..but then I realized...I don't need to think about whether or not I love you Kristin...because I already know I do... and that's all that matters..." He paused and swallowed loudly. "I'm not good to you. And you don't deserve it. I need to tell you some things, some shit that I've done.I've gotta come clean. I just pray to God that you will forgive me. I'm so sorry, babygirl. I'm coming over..." He sat silently not knowing what to say next, then hung up and pressed harder on the gas, like he was driving an ambulance with a man who’d just had a heart attack clinging to life in the back.

Ring. Ring. Ring. He called her numerous times and got no answer before finally getting out of the car and pacing outside of the door to the apartment building. His grunts of frustration startled the silence as he tried to think of what to do next. He didn't have a key and he couldn't get into the building and up to her room without her buzzing him up. He grew increasingly frustrated and he banged on the hard door of the building in hopes that someone passing through in the hall would hear and let him inside. Nothing. He took a few steps back and thought to himself. "Fuck man, what have I done..." Suddenly he opened his phone and searched for the cell phone number of Kristin's roommate. He knew it was an entirely inappropriate time to be calling, but he resorted to it at last, as he refused to leave without confessing everything to Kristin and telling her how much he loved her. On the third ring, Marie came on the line with a raspy "Hello?"

"Marie!" he said frantically, "I need you to buzz me up. Or wake up Kristin and tell her to-"

"What?" she said slowly, sounding confused and still half-asleep. "Mark?"

"Yes!" he yelled, "Let me in, please! I need to talk to Kristin!"

"Wait, I- I thought Kristin was still out with you..." she said nervously.

"The hell? I dropped her off like 3 hours ago, look in her room!"

There was rustling and static as Marie crept out of bed and into the other room. "She's not here, Mark.."

Mark didn't hear any of the words she said after that. Her voice trailed off and he stood in a daze, scanning the darkness and the sweat covered grass of the surrounding area. He disconnected Marie and slowly punched the digits one last time, hoping with everything he had that Kristin would pick up, wondering where the hell she could be at this hour. Then... he heard it. The familiar, high pitched melody of her ring tone, coming from a little ways away. He glanced to the direction of the noise in horror and confusion. He rushed around the side of the buidling, until the sight of his babygirl, laying motionless behind some bushes, stopped and hit him like a brick wall.

She had never made it inside the building. After Mark had sped off and left her crying in the parking lot, she turned and he was there. Like a predator praying on something not only innocent but vulnerable, his eyeballs glistened eerily in the fog and glare of the lamp post, and all at once he attacked her. Grabbing her by the hair, forcing her down onto the ground behind the bushes, where he used a sharp blade to frantically cut off her skirt and have his way with her. The same blade he stabbed her in the stomach with repeatedly as he could think of no other working way to keep her from screaming as he raped her. And by the time he had finished and left her there, lying in a puddle of her own blood, she had only enough energy in her dying arms to reach for her phone and hit the redial button...



"WHAT?" There was nothing on the other line but the sound of "babygirl" taking short, violent breaths, as she cried uncontrollably. "What do you want, huh?" Still she managed nothing but pants and soft sobs. He rolled his eyes as he had broken up with her many times before and was numb to her pain and used to upsetting her. "It's over. Do you hear me? I said it's OVER. WE'RE OVER. " The sound of her crying became more crisp. He stepped out of the car, holding the phone to his ear as he closed and locked the door. "Please, Mark, don't hang up," she whispered, a barely audible plead that escaped through the tears. He paused before walking up the driveway. "Look, you can cry all you want," he said, "but stop calling." The dim light of the front porch flickered on as he hung up and cut through the grass to greet a blonde haired woman in a short red dress who waited seductively. As he neared she extended the storm door open to him and they grinned at one another. "I thought you said you'd be here earlier," said the woman.

"I had some car trouble..."









-written by Gena Lea
*Thanks for reading


Note: This is one of the best short stories anyone from Rb has ever produced. Clearly legendary. I expect to see great things from Gena in the future. or else! :mad: -Feeble.