Good for You...

Why couldn’t she just let me have my one slice of the pie? It was a pretty big pie, there were a good number of slices but she had to stick her grimy fingers in every last one.

Bitch!

I felt my blood boil as I stood beneath the partial shade of the tree. It was early spring and only a few of the leaves had crept slowly out of hiding to greet the sun and cast a dappled shadow on the patch of ground on which I stood. I hate the sun. It is only the beginning of the season but already far too hot for my liking. I thrive in a cooler climate. This sticky heat and the insects that came with it were never for me. I would rather be inside with a fresh air-conditioned breeze cooling my clammy skin but I had to hear this.

How could she?

I had recently gotten my claws into doing work for a design firm, which I had just as recently realised was a dream of mine and I was bloody good at it. I was not getting paid yet but this was a stepping stone and one that I was very excited about. I had broken the good news to the very same people that I now saw sitting at the table in front of me but all I got was, ‘Ah, nice. Can you get me a drink please?' but not her, she had  gotten those pie-covered paws into the very same free-lance work that I had and now they were wrapped around every word she said to them about her recent ‘stroke of good fortune’.

Get you a drink? Sure, I’ll get you a drink. . .

No one seemed to even notice I was standing under the tree looking on like some off-duty voyeur. I stubbed out my cigarette against the bark and let the butt fall to the floor. Slapping my smile back on, I walked to the table. They were all getting pretty drunk by now. Perfect. I felt a devilish smile creep across my lips but stopped it dead as I opened my mouth to speak.

‘I hear our lady-friend here is going to be joining me.’ I said, with faux excitement. ‘How about we celebrate? I have a surprise for you.’ I offered them jelly shots that, being the good party/drinking buddy that I was known to be, I had prepared a little while earlier while they were engrossed in this woman’s bragging. No table of drunken young adults is going to turn down free celebratory jelly shots. ‘Who wants some?’ Every hand went up.

So predictable.

I fetched the shots and walked back outside to great applause. Too late for that I thought. As I neared the table I assured myself that they were going to down them so fast that there was no way they would find the little surprise I had hidden in the luminous green jelly.

My little friends.

My little shards of glass.