Honestly, I had everything I wanted. I had the perfect job planning weddings for the biggest firm in Manhattan. I had the perfect apartment in the Flatiron District on the perfect block with the perfect coffee shop downstairs. I had the most perfect boyfriend—who would propose any day now, I was sure. We’d been saving to buy our own perfect home together. And once we moved in, I’d have the perfect wedding to kick off the perfect life.

As I stepped out of the cab and into my building, that thought had me forgetting all about my spill into the flower bed or my filthy pants or my stupid boss or the myriad brides hell-bent on making my job as difficult as possible. Because I was on the threshold of all the beautiful and wonderful things. All I had to do was walk through the metaphorical door.

I slipped my key in my very real door and opened it, touched by the familiar scent of home and the sound of my perfect boyfriend fucking Natasha Felix against the wall of our entryway.

I didn’t feel my fingers let go of the keys, nor did I hear them hit the ground. I was too busy listening to the huffing and puffing and grunting as Brock drilled her into the wall, pants puddled at his ankles, shirttail covering most of his ass as he thrust. It was a small ass, I noted distantly, smaller than I’d realized. That ass was foreign to me, as were the noises he made and the sight of his hands on the twenty-year-old reality star’s waist.

Natasha opened her doe eyes and smiled at me like a porn star, twisting her fingers in his hair.

And yet, I felt no pain. I felt a number of things, like a sad sort of pity for the pathetic visage of the man I’d thought I loved pumping her like a Chihuahua on a throw pillow. I felt a raw fury, mostly at the audacity that he’d deceived me, accompanied by a rush of shame at my stupidity for placing my trust so carelessly.

But there was no pain, a realization that dawned on me like sunrise over a mountain peak. In fact, under all that fury, I noted the dim sense of relief that I’d moved out of the way in time to miss getting hit by that particular train.

I hung on to that half-truth with the same tenacity with which I grasped a candlestick and hurled it at the wall, and when I walked through the door once more, it was with a slam that shook the stars.

3

Bawdy by Nature

KASH

The shower cut off with a squeak. Steam had gathered in tufts and whorls at the ceiling, diffusing the light and fogging the mirror as the dirt from the day, muddying the banks of streaming water, slipped toward the drain in cloudy eddies.