Train Wreck Girl Read Free Page B

not worth it.”
    Libra came across the room and tried to sit on my lap. The rocking chair creaked under the weight of us, and I lifted Libra off me.
    â€œNo, kid,” I said. “Your mom’s right. I’m just a phase you’re going through. You may as well get out of this while you still can.”
    Libra crossed her arms again. “What are you saying, Danny?”
    â€œYou don’t give a shit about me. I’m just a fling. Someone you can talk about at the country club in a few years.”
    â€œThat’s not true.” Libra’s eyes watered up again. “I love you.”
    â€œNo, you don’t,” I said. And, I didn’t want to be mean, but I knew I should be. I knew I should be at least mean enough to make the breakup stick. So I said, “I don’t love you.”
    â€œYou’re not an asshole, Danny. Don’t act like one.”
    I got up from the rocking chair and walked to my backpack. It was lying on the linoleum kitchen table. I unzipped it, dug out my Greyhound ticket, and handed it to Libra. “I am an asshole,” I said. “We may as well end this now. I was planning on leaving, anyway.”
    Libra looked at the ticket and saw that I really was leaving in less than two days and a spark flared up in her eyes. It was enough to start the fireworks. Yelling and screaming and throwing shit. She told me I was a loser and a waste of time and the worst mistake of her life. Which was all fair enough. She called me white trash. Which hurt. The “trash” part I can take. But I don’t know why she had to throw “white” in there.
    I only winced at the insults and didn’t yell back. I figured it was her time to lose her temper. She was justified. I guess she took my lack of a response as apathy, though, so she started doing anything she could to get a reaction out of me. She started breaking stuff. That was fine with me. I was planning on leaving it all behind, anyway. She ripped the arm off my record player. She snapped the rocker off my chair. She stuck my boot in the oven and turned the oven on. She heaved my favorite metal sculpture through the living room window. In the midst of her tantrum, I wondered, Could she be The One? What if she is The One and I’m blowing it right now? Could I stop this?
    I decided, no, I couldn’t stop it. She’d blown off all her steam already and I needed to get my boot out of the oven before it caught fire and burned the trailer down. When I got back from the kitchen, Libra had exhausted herself. She called her brother Angus to come pick her up.
    It only took her brother about five minutes to get to the trailer. I waited out that time on the couch. Libra spent it in the bedroom, packing up shit. I told her that I should be the one to leave, since I was leaving anyway and rent was already paid on the trailer, but Libra wanted to go. Or at least that’s how I interpreted all her fuck yous.
    Angus rattled on the trailer door and I opened it. Libra came flying out of the bedroom with her pink parka on and a backpack slung over her shoulder. She rushed between Angus and me. Angus stood there, glaring at me, looking like he wanted to kill me. I could tell he was thinking about taking a crack at me, but the poor kid was way smaller and younger and dumber than me, and barely smart enough to realize this.
    Something in his eyes burned brighter than whatever had been burning in Libra’s eyes. At least with Libra, there was some love mixed in with all the hate. Not with Angus. He glared at me like, one day, motherfucker… One day.

4
The Fucker in the Room
    I still had one scene left to play out with Libra. It came after closing time the next night.
    I’d finished my last shift at The Corner Bar. All the night’s money was locked away in the safe. All my side work was done: the bar mats had been hosed down and left in the kitchen to dry, all the glasses were washed and stacked