1
Logan Indry
Miranda’s eyesbugged as she heaved a stiff embroidered pillow from the couch in my direction. I scrambled around to the other side of the coffee table, out of the way, but the missile pinged off the wall, knocked down a framed poster with a dull crunch of glass, and then slapped the edge of my betta’s bowl. The mermaid base was heavy, so it shouldn’t have been a problem, but somehow the pillow hit it straight on, almost like that was where Miranda had been aiming all along.
“Coy!” I yelled as I raced to stop the teetering bowl from smashing—but I was too late. In what felt like slow motion, I stretched out my fingers and fumbled as the bowl hit the floor with a crash. Foul-smelling cold water splattered my pants and face as Coy flopped on the floor in the wreckage. My heart hammering fast, I scooped him up, running into the nearby bathroom to fill the sink with water.
“Goddamn it,” I groaned and turned on the faucet. Sweat ran down my forehead and stung my eyes as I tipped Coy into the small amount of water at the bottom of the sink, all while whispering a prayer. Miranda kept the apartment at nearly eighty degrees in the winter, no matter how often I asked her not to do that, and the temperature change between his bowl and the tap water might be enough to kill him. I ducked down to rummage under the sink and pulled out the drops to condition the water with a triumphant laugh, but before I could put any in, Miranda was there beside me. She slapped the bottle out of my hand and it skittered away across the floor to shoot behind the toilet.
“What is wrong with you?” I asked, but it felt more like begging because I knew I wouldn’t get a real answer.
She smacked the faucet off, but at least there was enough water in there for the moment. Coy slowly swam around, though, and he didn’t look good.
Her nostrils flared, and I was sorry I’d ever thought she was beautiful. Petite and blonde, she didn’t look like she’d ever be able to do any of the awful things she regularly did. People described her as elfin, or called her Tinkerbell, but she was really ahorror show. Dressed the way she was right now, her terrorizing was worse. The silky pink dress flared around her trim hips and made her seem somehow sweeter. Seeing her look so harmless and act so abysmal was worse than if she would have fit the part she played. She flipped her long blonde hair off her shoulder and came at me with her fists raised.
Holding my hands above my head, I let her pound on my chest even though my adrenaline rose and all I wanted to do was shove her off. I’d hurt her if I swiped her away. The one time I’d tried to defend myself and had moved her, she’d gotten a small bruise on her hip in the process—because she was still trying to come after me—and she’d threatened to go to the cops.
I felt so trapped.
“Stop. Just stop and listen to me, please, Miranda!”
Each blow from her didn’t hurt in and of itself, but she wouldn’t fuckingstop, and my chest was beginning to ache. She stomped my toes and it fucking hurt because she was in pointy heels.
“Fuck!” I backed away from her and slammed into the wall. The hit rattled the door of the medicine cabinet.
When she finally wound down, she stood back and glared. I tried to get the water conditioner off the floor to save Coy, but she moved until she was right in front of me and wouldn’t step back.
“What do you mean you’re not going out with me tonight?” She tapped her pointy shoes and glared.
“You were there today. I got fired. Fuck,yousigned off on the paperwork. You were the one who did it.” Shrugging, I heaved a giant breath. “I have just enough money for my bills if I get another job in the next week or so. You know this. I can’t take you out.” My chest squeezed as her pretty face flushed red.
“Don’t blame this on me!” she shrieked, and I winced. There was pounding from the ceiling above us. Our neighbors loved to add their two cents when we were fighting and Miranda got too loud. We’d be getting a bitchy call from our landlord next.
“Butyoufired me.”
“No,” she snarled out, and my gut twisted. “You were the dumb fuck who gotyourselffired.”
The room spun and it felt like I was trapped in an evil funhouse as I faltered and tried to remember exactly what had happened this morning. “You gave other people leeway. I was only a few minutes late three times in the last year—”
She growled. “Are you accusing me of something?” Her petulant stare, so sure she was in the right, confused me.
“It wasn’t my fault. I was late becauseyouasked me to dropyourcar off at the mechanic. Right?”
“And then you were late to work. For the fourth time, just like you pointed out. You didn’t call in.”
I felt like I was going absolutely around the bend. “You knew where I was and that I was on my way!”
“So youareaccusing me!”
Standing there, the floor seemed to sink from under my feet, even though I knew better. “I… no?” My toes hurt where she’d stomped them, and a dull ache started up in my feet.
She shoved me backward, and I thumped the wall again. “If you don’t have a job by tomorrow, you’re fucking out of here. My brothers already hate you—”
“Why? They’ve never even met me!”
She tilted her head and smirked as she went on tiptoe to lean toward my face. Once upon a time I’d thought her shiny lips were the most mesmerizing thing in the world, but now I wanted nowhere near them. “Because I tell them how fucking useless you are!”
My eyes stung, but the last thing I would do was cry. One, I’m a man, so no, waterworks would not happen—I knew she’d only laugh if I gave in and sobbed, and I couldn’t take it. “Then why did you want me to live here? You told me I was moving in last year. You arranged to have my stuff moved in. You wanted it!”
