Scar

I don't like my left hand. I try not to look at it. On one of the fingers is a little scar that holds a big memory. It's the middle finger. How fitting. I got it from doing the dishes. Simple enough. I was washing a smooth glass and wasn't wearing gloves. The slippery detergent coating my fingers caused it to shoot right out of my hands. I tried to catch it but it was too late. It bounced around in the sink, shattered, and a jagged shard sliced the back of my finger wide open. It was just a little cut, but it was so deep. It wouldn't stop bleeding. I wrapped a paper towel around it and ran downstairs to find him. He was watching wrestling, as usual. When I told him what happened and tried to show him, he brushed me aside like an annoying mosquito and told me I was fine. Quieted me so he could direct his attention back to his show. Fine. Okay. It was just a little cut. But just like the first, it wouldn't stop bleeding. I ran back up to the first floor and then the second, and into my little room his mom had made for me out of the office by the bathroom. I sat on my mattress and stared at my finger for a long time. He was supposed to do the dishes. That was his chore. I thought I'd be nice that evening and do it for him so his mom wouldn't bitch the entire night at him for forgetting....again. He never mentioned it.

Ten months later. We stand in the Pizza Hut parking lot in front of the hotel where we met almost every weekend. Where I let him have his way with me, even when I didn't want it at all. He didn't care. I asked him where the condoms were going. Why there were only a few left in the full box we had just bought two weeks ago. He told me he suspected his cousin was stealing them and that he had been wondering the same thing for a week now. I asked him why he felt the need to keep tabs on the number of condoms in the box in the first place. He said because his cousin is just sneaky like that and he figured it was something he would do, so he checked the box. I told him I thought it was time for him to go now. He told me I was crazy and that I should trust him. That we had been together for almost two years now, after all. Later that week, his cousin called me. He told me it was only fair to let me know that he'd seen him with another girl. Heard them having sex upstairs and saw them leaving the house together. I broke up with him the next day. Bastard. I hate having to carry his memory around on my hand, but at least it's appropriately located, right where he deserves to be. Middle finger, motherfucker.