She Who Will Not Look Back

She had a temper, this woman. When vexed she could throw a fit that resonated for miles. Like a full-blown storm, her fits would last for days and days, coloring the landscape of their already strange dalliance a murky gray.

Anything could set her off. Making her wait. Asking the wrong thing, on some days. Setting limits. Lies. Little deceptions that were always found out. Awful truth in the first telling.

They were coming back from a runaway weekend, talking quietly inside his car.

‘Why won’t you let me drop you off?’

‘You know why.’

He eases the car into post-lunch traffic. She is looking out the window when he turns to her.

‘Don’t you want to go home with me?’

Her face, when she turns to him, is a furious mask.

‘Stop the car. Now.’

‘Don’t do this. Please. I mean, come on.’

Before he could even get to that last word, she is out the door, her hair flying, the hard slam rattling the glass.

Stuck before the red light, all he could do was gaze up at the rearview mirror. He watched her walk into the crowd, striding in the opposite direction, taking on the stream. Her palpable anger created eddies of people stepping away in her wake.

She did not look back, she did not. Not even once.