Tags:
United States,
Romance,
Literature & Fiction,
Short Stories,
Contemporary Fiction,
Women's Fiction,
African American,
Multicultural & Interracial,
Short Stories & Anthologies,
Two Hours or More (65-100 Pages),
Single Authors
Chapter One
Julie
walked into the kitchen and poured two glasses of juice before making
her way back to the living room where her best friend Meg was. Julie
and her new husband Steven had just come back from their honeymoon in
Hawaii and had been in town for two days. It was only today though,
on the third day, that Meg had managed to get some time to come over
and catch up with her best friend. Julie set a glass in front of Meg
before she sat down.
“ So,
let me get this straight,” Meg started as she took a sip of her
juice. “You went mountain climbing and both of your harness's failed?”
Julie
took a long sip and shook her head.
“ No,
Steven’s harness failed. But not in a potentially fatal way,”
she said.
Meg
raised an eyebrow.
“ Not
a potentially fatal way?” she asked in a surprised tone.
Julie
nodded and then shrugged. “What? Is that not a possibility?”
the newlywed asked.
Meg
put the glass down and raised her hands. She always did this when
going to make a point; usually a point that didn’t really
matter to Julie.
“ Well
that may be possible, but it's still a very serious case. Why the
hell do you sound so okay about this?” she asked.
Julie
laughed.
“ Trust
me, I nearly had a meltdown at the time... but I've moved past that”
she said smiling.
“ Thank
God... I think,” Meg said wondering why Julie was treating this
like some kind of funny occurrence. She looked into Julie’s
brown eyes and shook her head. “What are you not telling me?”
she asked.
“ Well,
I might have flipped out on Steven,” she said. Meg’s eyes
lit up. This was way juicier.
“ Details.
Leave nothing out,” she said.
“ Well,
after his minor incident,” Julie started putting up finger
quotes to emphasize the word ‘minor’. “He was
acting like it was no big deal, as if the fact that he is an
experienced mountain climber makes him immune to death or at the very
least really bad accidents.” She took another sip of her juice
and shrugged.
“ Did
he know you were frazzled by all this?” Meg asked.
“ Does
the ground get wet when it rains? Is the pope Catholic?” Julie
asked before she tucked a curly strand behind her ear.
“ And
you just had to pick a fight during your honeymoon?” Meg asked.
Julie
raised an eyebrow and smiled.
“ Actually
that was not the real reason I flipped out, though I did and it was
not like he left me much of a choice anyway,” she said. Meg
smiled.
“ You
flipped out on your new husband not once but twice?” she asked.
Julie
took a sip of her juice and shrugged.
“ What
can I say? He was kind of being an ass,” she said. Meg gave her
a judgmental look. “Okay, this is what happened. After
his…incident, I had my own little thing on the zip line…”
she started before Meg held up a finger.
“ You
still haven’t told me what happened with you,” she said.
Julie
took a breath and shook her head, almost as if she was just eager to
get through that fact.
“ I
don’t know what happened but there was a knot on the zip line.”
Meg’s
eyes grew wide.
“ What?
Don’t they have some kind of maintenance on their equipment or
something?” she asked as she toyed with the rim of her glass.
“ I’m
sure they do but there, it was all too weird…it had been used
the day before and things were just fine. I’m guessing it was
some kind of power play. But that’s beside the point,”
she said quickly.
“ Really?”
Meg asked.
Julie
smiled and shrugged.
“ You
know what I mean,” she said. “Anyway, I got pissed off
because of how Steven reacted. He was very chilled and cool about his
own accident, but when it came to what happened to me, he went
ballistic saying he was going to sue and everything. It was
terrible,” Julie concluded before she took a long sip. “And
like I said, it seemed a little odd. Must have been some kind of
sabotage plan or something.”
Meg
smiled.
“ Aww,
you guys had your first fight on your honeymoon,”
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