Everyone said Caleb Hayes was crazy about me. For years, we were the kind of love story that burns down buildings. He was the proudest man I knew, and I was the only one who ever saw him laugh until he cried, the only one for whom he would have broken every bone in his body. But in our seventh year, he met her. The one he said he was “truly meant for.” One spectacular fight, and we were over. Five years later, on the third day after his return to the States, he smashed my food truck to pieces in a public square, all to defend his new girl's honor. I wasn’t feeling particularly charitable. I slapped her three times, hard enough to leave a mark. We both ended up at the precinct. I refused to reconcile. They locked me up. He posted bail that same day, paid her fine, and walked out with his arm around her. Three days later, an officer told me they needed to call a family member to come get me. “Don’t have any,” I said, my voice flat. “They’re all dead.” As if on cue, Caleb showed up with a crowd of his friends, all of them ready to enjoy the show. I grabbed the nearest heavy object—a fire extinguisher—and swung. That little stunt bought me a few more days in a cell. Later, a female cop looked at me, genuinely confused. “What’s with the temper?” I just stared back in silence. There was no point in explaining. When you’re already dying, you stop giving a damn about being polite. Besides, his brother was the one who killed my father. Another swing of that fire extinguisher would have been getting off easy. 1 It was three in the morning. The last of the late-night crowd had drifted away from the food truck, and I was shutting down the grill. A girl with bleached-blonde hair appeared out of the darkness, leaning over the counter to look at the menu. Trailing behind her was Leo, Caleb’s best friend. His eyes met mine, and he froze. “Jenna, maybe we should try somewhere else?” Leo whispered, his voice tight. Jenna just shook her head, her smile relentlessly cheerful. “At three a.m.? Where else are we going to go? Besides,” she said, her gaze flicking to me, “this place looks… authentic. And clean!” She finally looked me in the eye. “We’ll take one of everything. And go easy on the spice—my boyfriend can’t handle too much heat.” I mumbled an okay from behind my mask, my hand trembling slightly as I stoked the coals. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t nerves. It was the body’s primal reaction to seeing a predator. “Leo, can you grab me a soda?” she chirped. “Caleb will be here any minute. We should have something to toast with, a little celebration for being back home.” Leo’s face was a stone mask. He didn’t answer. He knew perfectly well that as long as I was standing here, Caleb wouldn’t be celebrating anything. Jenna didn’t seem to notice. She unlocked her phone, the screen lighting up with a photo of two clasped hands. Caleb’s left hand was unmistakable. The missing half of his pinky finger was a stark, white scar against her skin. I was the one who did that, years ago, with a knife. Of course, he’d paid me back in full. The thin, silvery scar above my eyebrow was a permanent reminder of his shove, of my head meeting the corner of a marble coffee table. As if worried I might not be paying enough attention, Jenna switched her phone to speaker, her voice sickly sweet as she left a message. “Caleb, we’re at this little barbecue truck waiting for you! Hurry up, baby. I just sent you the location.” Five years, and she hadn’t developed a single new trick. Pathetic, that she thought this little performance would get under my skin. I sprinkled chili flakes over a skewer of lamb. My hand twitched. A little extra fell on. Might as well add some more. “Caleb! Over here!” Jenna suddenly shot to her feet, waving wildly at a figure emerging from the distant shadows. She ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck. Through the haze of grill smoke, Caleb’s eyes found mine. For a split second, he looked stunned. Jenna felt him stiffen and started to turn, but he caught her chin, tilting her head up and crushing his mouth to hers in a brutal, performative kiss. I looked away, squeezing another line of hot sauce onto a row of corn. The smoke billowed, thick and acrid, stinging my eyes. Leo shuffled up to the counter, his mouth opening and closing a few times before he finally managed to speak. “Sadie… please,” he stammered. “Don’t make this harder. They’ve been through so much to get here. It wasn’t easy, I…” His words were lost in a fit of coughing as the smoke washed over him. I ignored him, focusing on the fire. The heat was choking me, but it was a familiar burn. It kept me sharp. Just then, a voice I hadn’t heard in five years cut through the night. A voice I still heard in my nightmares. “Leave it on the grill longer,” Caleb said, not looking at me. “My girlfriend likes her food tender.” 2 Leo held his breath, watching me. I simply plated the skewers and set them on the counter. “Enjoy.” Jenna rested her chin in her hands, her eyes sparkling as she looked at Caleb. “Try it, baby. Does it taste like you remember?” Suddenly, the metal stool next to their table was yanked back. Two beefy guys, shirtless and draped in gold chains, sat down heavily. “Hey! Get us some ribs,” one of them barked. They cracked open a case of beer they’d brought with them and started chugging, tossing a handful of crumpled bills onto my counter. “Extra spicy,” the other one slurred. “If it ain’t got a kick, we ain’t paying.” A few minutes and several beers later, they were wasted, catcalling me from their table. “Hey, beautiful! How about some extra sausage? A guy’s gotta keep his strength up for later, you know?” While their table grew louder, Caleb’s was unnervingly silent. Leo tried to get up and leave several times, but Caleb held him in place with a look. His eyes followed my every move, a detached curiosity in his gaze. He was probably wondering what sequence of failures had led me from a penthouse apartment to a grimy food truck on a Tuesday night. I didn’t care. A customer was a customer. And God, I needed the money. One of the drunks told a filthy joke, and his table roared with laughter. Jenna, however, was not amused. She could have just left. Instead, she stood up, walked over, and poured her entire beer over the bald head of the guy with the neck tattoo. The sound of the plastic cup hitting his skull was a dull thud. Beer and foam dripped down his face. He exploded, slamming the table and lunging to his feet. Caleb instantly jumped up, pulling Jenna behind him. He yanked his wallet out, throwing a thick wad of cash onto their table. “That’s for the trouble. Now go find somewhere else to drink.” I let out a cold laugh. If they left, my money left with them. In a flash, I snatched the cash from the table. Then I grabbed a half-full bottle of water and dumped it squarely over Jenna’s head. “Ah! You… you bitch!” she shrieked. Maybe that trip abroad had damaged her memory. She should have known better than to call me that. I fisted the money in one hand and grabbed the front of her designer blouse with the other, stuffing the wet bills down her shirt. For good measure, I slapped her. Hard. “Keep that mouth of yours clean,” I said, my voice dangerously low. “Or I’ll be happy to sew it shut for you.” The world went silent, the only sound the crackle of the embers on the grill. “Sadie, are you insane…” Caleb started. I spun around and slapped him, too. He touched his lip, a slow, cruel smile spreading across his face. “You can hit me. But hitting my fiancée? That’s crossing a line. Jenna, baby, what do you say? How should we make her pay?” Jenna clutched her cheek, fat tears welling in her eyes. Caleb’s gaze swept over my small setup. “This is a nice little truck you’ve got here. How about we smash it up for you, Jenna? Would that make you feel better?” Before I could react, he went berserk, grabbing racks of food and hurling them to the ground, kicking over tables and chairs, sending my entire livelihood crashing onto the greasy pavement. The two drunks stared, mouths agape, looking from me to the enraged man demolishing my life. They scrambled away into the night. I stared at the wreckage. Something inside me finally snapped. I launched myself at Jenna, grabbing a fistful of her bleached hair and pulling. It took both Caleb and Leo to drag me off her. In the end, all four of us ended up at the precinct. As the cops put me in the car, I looked at the ruin of my truck. That was at least a thousand dollars in damages. Enough to cover a week of my chemo. This was literally killing me.
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