Page 64 of Castings & Curses

BROODY AND THE BEAST

LULU M. SYLVIAN

CHAPTER1

Paisley

The laptop lay in a crumpled heap. The side with the monitor was folded and twisted, mostly separated from the base. Letter keys scattered around, mixed in with fragments of broken plastic and shattered glass. The computer had sailed through the air in a graceful arch before it crashed with a glorious smack against the granite counter and fell to where it currently lay on the tile floor.

The best friend a guy could ask for.

“Fuck!” I shook with rage.

The woman in the picture had a big toothy grin, a pointy little nose, and while she was mostly tan, her nose was pink and peeling from too much time in the sun. Her dark wet hair hung limp to her shoulders. She wore a surfer’s rash guard that exposed her lower abdomen, showing off a six-pack. The tiny string bikini barely covered her pubes. She had to shave her hoo-ha.

She had a surfboard under one arm, and the other around…

The best friend a guy could ask for.

Why did I have to look on social media this morning? Another hour and that stupid picture would have been gone, buried in the constant input of new images. But no, I checked in right now, and there it was: Dylan and that woman. A huge smile slashed across his stupid face. His blond hair stood up in a shaggy mess. He had a dark tan and his arm around the surfer chick. The girlfriend, the not-me.

I didn’t know he liked the beach so much. He complained constantly on one trip we had taken. Now that I thought back on it, he had been complaining about me. My bathing suit, my need for an umbrella, my constant reminding him to put on sunscreen. And having to beg him to get in the water with me.

But what it all came down to, was me in a bathing suit. I should have recognized the signs.

The best friend a guy could ask for.

Stupid smiling couple, stupid little orange bikini bottoms, stupid surfer girl and her naked pubes.

That should have been me in the picture with Dylan. I had been his best friend once. Hadn’t I? I only gave him a little nudge to see that I was the best thing to have ever happened to him. He said he loved me. Said it even after the effects of my little spell had faded away.

He agreed it was time to have kids. Didn’t he realize he was agreeing to more than just all of a sudden there would be a baby in their lives, but that I was going to alter my body forever? Not every woman has the genetics that lets her body snap right back into pre-baby shape. And even if I could get back to my pre-baby weight, my hips had been wide even then.

I should have seen this coming the second he complained about stretch marks while I was pregnant. “Those will go away, won’t they?”

If Dylan wasn’t happy with the changes in my body, he should have gotten inside my head. Every ignorant comment he made had me doubting myself at every turn. I tried to explain that it took almost ten months for my body to change. I wasn’t going to walk out of the hospital in pre-baby shape.

He had given me two years to get back into shape.

Two years. God, he was an asshole.

So now he’s off traveling internationally to surfing competitions with that woman, and I’m living in Gran’s old house with Terri-Ann and her family until I can get back on my feet.

Why did he have to write that? If he needed a best friend, he could have gotten a dog.

“Aunt Paise, you all right?” Twelve-year-old Vidalia slid into the kitchen in her stocking feet. She took a horrified look at the broken computer on the kitchen floor, and then at me. I was still on my ass at the table on the other side of the room. “What happened?”

I shrugged. “There was a spider.”

Vida did one of those cartoon runs. Her feet moved, but she didn’t go anywhere for a moment before her feet got traction. She crashed out of the kitchen as fast as she could.

“Mama! Aunt Paisley killed a spider with her computer! I think she’s crying.” That child couldn’t be quiet if she tried.

Terri-Ann burst into the kitchen and took one look at me.

“Oh Paisley, sweetie. What did that asshole do this time?”

I gestured at the laptop and tried to say something, but my words got trapped in a sob. I didn’t want to cry over Dylan.

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