Flowers in a Dumpster (22 page)

Keith smiled. “That would be nice.”

“I also put some of my towels in the bathroom,” she said, gesturing with her right hand, which drew attention to the bandage there.

“What happened?” he asked, his voice dripping with concern.

Lily touched her bandaged hand, a shiver working its way through her body. “Nothing. I burned myself on the stove earlier.”

Keith crossed the room, taking her hand gently and delivering a soft kiss to the skin above the bandage. “I’m sorry, babe. You have to be more careful.”

***

A week later, Keith came home unexpectedly right after his afternoon geometry class. Normally he went straight from school to work, but he stepped into the apartment saying, “Babe, I’ve lost my credit card somewhere. I need to find it before—”

He froze in the doorway. Lily stood in the center of the living room, looking at him sheepishly, like a child caught doing something naughty. But Keith’s eyes weren’t focused on her; they were zeroed in on the new furniture. Floral patterned sofa with a matching loveseat and recliner.

“Where did this stuff come from?” he asked.

“I bought it.”

“With what money?”

With her hands behind her back, Lily twisted from to side, what her father had always called her
I’m so adorable you can’t be too mad at me
posture. “Okay, thing is, you didn’t lose your credit card. I sort of borrowed it.”

“What? You
took
my credit card?”

“You agreed with me when I said we should get some new stuff.”

“Yeah, I meant that we would go together and pick it out, make sure it was stuff we both liked and could afford. How much did this stuff cost?”

“Around three hundred,” she said.

Keith stumbled over to the loveseat and sat heavily on the new cushion. “That’s pretty much my entire credit limit.”

“I know, I wanted to get more.”

“Where’s the old furniture?”

“The guys that delivered the new living room set hauled the old stuff away. It’s part of the service the store provides.”

Keith leaned over until his head hung between his knees, like he was afraid he was about to pass out or something. “I can barely pay the bills as it is, and now I’m going to have all this credit card debt to pay off.”

“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that,” Lily said, sitting next to him. “You need a better job.”

His head whipped up and he fixed her with a poisonous glare. “What?”

“You don’t make shit working part-time at the grocery store. If you had a better job, we could afford to move out of this dump to somewhere nicer.”

“Well, sorry if this
dump
isn’t good enough for you, princess, but my employment options are limited while I’m in school.”

“So maybe you shouldn’t be in school.”

“What are you saying? You want me to drop out?”

“What are you going to do with an English degree anyway?” Lily asked with a derisive snort. “Teach? Bad pay and high stress. Might as well take one of the jobs down at the chemical plant.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Keith screamed, his voice detonating in the apartment like an auditory bomb. “Where is all this coming from?”

“I’m trying to help you better yourself. Excuse me for thinking your life could stand a little improvement. I can see you have trouble showing gratitude.”

“God damn it!” Keith yelled, jumping to his feet and kicking over the end table by the sofa, sending Lily’s Tiffany lamp crashing to the floor where the glass shade shattered. “I need to get to work, I’m already late.”

Lily stood up, hands on her hips. “Are you just going to walk out in the middle of a discussion?”

“Trust me. You don’t want me here right now.”

He flung open the door, which banged so hard against the wall it knocked a framed photo of Keith and Lily off its peg. More shattered glass tinkled to the floor. Before Keith exited, he rammed his fist into the wall and punched a hole through the thin plaster.

Lily slowly lowered herself back the loveseat, her arms wrapped around herself as a shaky breath sighed past her lips. She reached down and idly scratched at her shin.

Even though she was wearing shorts today, Keith had failed to notice all the fresh cuts on her legs.

***

Lily waited an hour then drove directly to the grocery store. She spotted Keith as soon as she walked through the automatic doors, bagging groceries for a middle-aged woman with flaming red hair and a shirt cut too low for a woman of her age. Keith said something to the woman and she giggled.

“So that’s why you ran off in such a hurry,” Lily said loudly, stalking over to Keith. “Had to get to work so you could flirt with slutty cougars?”

“I beg your pardon,” said the redhead.

“Why don’t you keep your mouth and your legs closed for a change, honey?”

“Lily, have you lost your mind?” Keith asked. “What has gotten into you?”

“My eyes are suddenly open, that’s all. You don’t like my stuff. You get angry when I try to talk to you about ways to make our life better. It’s so obvious. The thought of settling down terrifies you.”

“This a friend of yours?” asked the lethargic checkout girl, popping gum as she watched the events unfolding before her with a look of ironic detachment.

Lily turned on her. “Why don’t you mind your own fucking business?”

This seemed to shake the lethargy from the girl. “When it happens at my register, it
is
my business. And you should watch your mouth before someone punches you in it.”

“Keith, are you going to let this skank talk to me like that?”

“Who are you calling a skank?”

“I don’t mean to be rude,” said the redhead, “but can you all save the soap opera for later so I can get my groceries bagged and get out of here?”

Lily reached into one of the bags, pulled out a nectarine and threw it at the woman. It hit her squarely in the shoulder. “I told you to keep your mouth shut.”

Keith was frozen in shock, but the redhead started around the cart, her hands balled into fists.

“What is all this ruckus?” said a pimply faced teenager in a short-sleeve dress shirt and tie, approaching from an office in the far corner. He wore a nametag that identified him as ‘Dave—Assistant Manager.’

“Nothing,” Keith said quickly. “Just a little misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding my ass,” said the redhead. “This girl came bounding in here hurling insults, and then she assaulted me with my own fruit.”

Dave turned to the cashier who blew a large bubble, sucked it back in, nodded and said, “She’s a psycho.”

“Do you know this person?” Dave asked, addressing Keith.

Keith ducked his head down, ashamed to admit to his association with Lily. “She’s my girlfriend.”

“I suggest you get her out of the store right this second.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Lily said. “I mean, according to Keith you only got the assistant manager position because you sucked and swallowed the manager.”

Keith recoiled as if he’d been slapped. “What? No, I never said any such—”

“Come on, you don’t have to put up with any shit from this peckerhead. He’s every bit the Nancy Boy you said he was. I bet I could even take him.”

Dave looked simultaneously furious and hurt. His voice was low and seething when he turned to Keith and said, “Take her out of here, and don’t either of you come back.”

“No man, seriously, I don’t know what’s gotten into her, but—”

“Go!” Dave roared.

“We don’t have to go anywhere,” Lily said, stepping forward and poking a finger pointedly in Dave’s chest.

But then Keith started dragging her by the arm toward the exit. She yanked back, but his grip was like steel. Once outside, he grabbed both her arms, so hard she was certain there would be finger-shaped bruises there tomorrow, and shook her. “Are you fucking insane?” he screamed into her face. “What was that display all about?”

“I saw you talking to that soccer mom cunt in there, and I lost it.”

With a growl, Keith shoved her away from him. She slammed into the cement wall of the store, knocking her head against the bricks, and slid to the pavement. Keith advanced on her, looking so much like Roy Vance in that moment that she almost thought she was hallucinating. Before he reached her, however, he suddenly veered to the right. The store was fronted by several stone columns, and he stopped before one and started banging his head against it. Once, twice, three times. Lily could see that his forehead was bleeding but he remained with his head pressed against the rough stone.

“I try to be calm,” he murmured to himself. “I try to keep my cool, but you keep pushing me.”

“A real man wouldn’t let himself be pushed,” she spat.

He turned toward her again but still managed to hold himself back. He started beating at the sides of his face with his fists. He was chewing on his lips again, and they were shredded. Blood dribbled down his chin. “I can feel it building up, and I’m so afraid I’m going to explode. I have to go, find somewhere quiet, somewhere to clear my head before I do something stupid. I can’t be around you right now.”

He started away from her, and she pushed herself up to her feet, probing at the sore spot on the back of her skull. There was no blood but there was a sizable knot that she pressed with her fingers.

“Run away like a fucking baby,” she yelled after Keith, but he didn’t stop. He rushed to his car and then peeled out of the grocery store’s parking lot.

***

Lily spotted Keith as soon as he stepped into the bedroom, but she didn’t let on. She dug her nails into Roy’s ass and urged him deeper inside of her. She arched her back and cried out, loud and exaggerated. “You’re the best lover I’ve ever had, Roy. No one can give it to me like you can. I haven’t been satisfied since we broke up.”

Roy seemed oblivious to the fact that they were no longer alone. He continued to thrust into her hard and brutal, as if his dick was a battering ram. He was so focused on the task at hand he didn’t even hear Keith as he let loose with a ferocious roar.

He was across the room in a flash, grabbing Roy by the hair and dragging him off the bed. Still holding him by the hair, Keith punched Roy in the face three times in rapid succession. Blood flew through the air in a spray, along with two teeth. Keith then tossed Roy to the floor. As Lily’s ex struggled to get up on his hands and knees, Keith delivered a swift kick to the man’s jaw. Roy crawled for the door and Keith followed.

Lily bolted up from the bed and grabbed Keith’s arm, tugging on it. “Stop it right this minute. You’re going to—”

Keith spun around and delivered a punch to Lily’s gut that made her feel as if she were going to vomit everything she’d ever eaten in her entire life. She staggered back, unable to catch her breath, and he followed up the gut punch with a roundhouse to the left side of her head. She crumpled to the floor, a ringing filling her ears that blocked out all other sounds. She saw Keith’s foot swinging toward her and braced herself. He caught her in the ribs, making breathing even harder.

He snatched her up by the arm. It felt as if he was going to pull her shoulder out of the socket, and threw her across the bed. She rolled off and crashed into the vanity, bottles of perfume and lotions raining down on her like hailstones. In her periphery she saw Roy snatching up his pants and scrambling out of the room. Not exactly a shining example of chivalry.

Keith towered over her, cords standing out in his neck as he yelled, “You stupid bitch! I have given you everything, my heart and soul. I treated you like a queen, but all you do is tear me down.” He punctuated this with a kick to her hip. “Why do you do this to me? Why do you make me want to hurt you?”

Keith fell to his knees, placed his face in his hands, and wept.

Lily lay on the floor, the glass of the broken bottles all around her, digging into her palms as she tried to push herself up. A long, shuddering moan escaped her as her entire body quaked. Dully, she watched her blood dripping onto the floor.

“I’m so sorry,” Keith said over and over, his words muffled by his hands. “God, I’m so sorry. I’m a monster. I promise I’ll never lay a hand on you again, I swear on my fucking life.”

Still shaking uncontrollably, Lily turned her head away from Keith, facing the wall.

“I’ll never do it again,” Keith said, this becoming his new mantra. “Never do it again, never do it again, never do it again.”

Lily adjusted her body, feeling the dampness between her legs from the orgasm that had swept through her. She moaned again and licked her lips as she was overcome with an aftershock of pleasure. Grinding her hands into the broken glass, her eyelids fluttered and her eyes rolled back in her head.

Behind her Keith was still crying, still promising never to hurt her again, but she knew that he would. She would make sure of it. All the time and effort invested in him was finally paying off.

She was molding him into the kind of man who could give her what she needed.

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