Why? Because I had no intention of ever laying eyes on him again. He had taken up too much of my time, my trust and now my bed. Bastard! As soon as I found my brother, he was as good as dead anyway. He had always hated Chris, and now he had a reason to do the very thing he had wanted to do since we began our two year relationship: kick his ass. There really wasn’t a point, though. The minute I saw the line of coke he’d left on the plate and the naked girl with blue puke dribbling from her lips on the couch, I was done. Chris was passed out, face down in the bathroom, and I wondered what I had ever seen in such a prick. I grabbed my clothes and the things most important to me and I left him, without so much as a screw you or a good bye.

I sighed heavily, laying my head down, eye level with the grass, and stared at the bright green blades. I pulled the blanket up beneath my feet so I could sink them into the slightly damp ground. I loved the grass and the way it sandwiched between my toes. I heard The Cranberries, Ode to My Family drifting out of someone’s radio. It was my first smile in almost twelve hours and I let it go. I was warming up already from the cold wait in my car. Spring had already given into summer, but for some reason waiting in the park parking lot without the heat on to preserve what little gas I had left from disappearing, was agony. It was unusually cold this morning, and just my luck. He would be waking up soon. He would realize why I wasn’t in bed with him. Would he even give a shit? Or would he just scrape up the naked skank on our couch and have another go at her? How could he be so stupid to cheat before I got home and leave her lying there? Unless…he had wanted me to see?

I’d been looking for a reason to get rid of Chris for months, maybe he felt the same. What we had was not love. It felt more like an obligation after I’d slept with him for a few months, but I guess it felt like an obligation to him too. The only thing we had in common was our recreational use of drugs and good sex. It was far from love. The only reason I knew that was because I was almost relieved right now. Homeless yes, but relieved.

Should I just go back? Tell him I could take a hint? That I was ready, too? Pack the rest of my shit? Screw it. The apartment was his and so was the furniture. I had given mine up to move in with him and he had better stuff, so I just kind of left mine where it was. Note to self-dumbass: don’t ditch your shit for anyone. Now I had to start from the ground up. I looked at my pager, four hours until my shift and my brother Dave had finally paged me. Screw it. I had to get what sleep I could. DJ Dave would have to worry about me for a while. My parents sure as hell weren’t. I hadn’t seen them since Christmas and even then they would barely let me in the house. I deserved it. I was the exact opposite of all they had hoped I would turn out to be. It was okay with me. It meant I could stop pretending I wanted the Barbie life with the Barbie house and the Barbie car, the life they had so purposely made for themselves.

It all looked so fucking depressing to me. All my parents did was work, day in and day out from sun up to sundown, and when they returned to the house there was actually a subject called ‘dinner’. Really? If that was what I had to look forward to, then fuck that with a capitol F! In no way was I going that route. No way in hell. My brother Dave felt the same. He had found a ton of success being one of the hottest DJ’s in Dallas. He had actually found permanent gigs around Dallas and tonight, he would be in Deep Ellum, a stomping ground for club kids in the downtown area, at the Blind Lemon, spinning his records and bringing the house down. I was so happy for him. He had practiced for years and it finally paid off. The only talent I had was taking orders and delivering drinks at the same bar. I would see him tonight, tell him what happened, and ask to crash at his place for a week until I could get my own. He would piss and moan, but at least I wouldn’t be sleeping on the damn grass.

“HEADS UP!” someone shouted a few feet away in my direction. I rose off the ground quickly to see what they were referring to and was immediately hit with what felt like a hammer directly in the mouth.

“Son of a bitch!” I roared, bringing my fingers to my lips and seeing red immediately. Tears sprang to my eyes. The pain was so intense that I couldn’t hold them back. My lips were throbbing horribly. I winced at the bright sun that invaded my senses from having my eyes closed for so long.

“Oh, God, I am so sorry!”

“What the hell man!”

“Your lips are bleeding pretty badly. I’m going to get some ice. I’ll be right back.”

I lifted my hand to shield my eyes from the sun and saw a guy jogging over to a cooler halfway across the length of the park. I immediately started searching for the weapon of destruction responsible for the throbbing in my face and saw a red Frisbee. A damn Frisbee can cause this much damage? I swiped my fingers across my lips and saw that they were still bleeding pretty profusely. What the hell? I picked the Frisbee up and studied it. It had the words Driver 1 scribbled on them. The guy was back, in my face now, and he carefully wiped away the blood before applying a make shift ice pack made of paper towel and ice on my lip.

“Get the hell away from me!”

“Whoa…I’m just trying to help. I’m really sorry my friends and I were trying to play around you and—“

“This park is huge! How hard can it be to avoid hitting someone with a damn Frisbee?”

“You were lying directly under one of the goals,” he said, pointing behind me to a metal chain basket that had the number six on it.

“What? Why a goal for a Frisbee?” I was keeping my head down, pressing it to the ice pack that was quickly melting into the paper towel.

“It’s called Frisbee golf. You know, instead of golf balls and putters we use Frisbees, and the goals replace the holes. Yeah, we were thinking of asking you to move, but figured we could work our way around you. Didn’t work out so well.”

“You think?” Well that explained why the word Driver was on the front of this one. It was definitely heavier than a regular Frisbee.

“Look, I’m really sorry… Uh, what’s your name?”

“Mad bitch with a busted lip.”

“Well, mad bitch with a busted lip, I’m Seth.”

“Well, Seth,” I said standing up quickly as I threw his ice bag to the ground and pulled my blanket into my arms, “thanks for the heads up, jackass. If you hadn’t of yelled it, my face wouldn’t be spewing red.”

“Another bad idea after the fact… Look, are you going to give me a break here?”

“Yesterday I would have, today no,” I glared at him. It was only then that I finally noticed the guy I was talking to was absolutely beautiful. He had short strawberry blond hair and deep green eyes. His t-shirt clung to his ripped chest and his soccer cut shorts looked strained around his thighs. He was tall and slim, but had an insanely muscular build. He seemed to tower over me as we stood facing each other. He had my height beaten by at least half a foot. Jesus. I soaked in his eyes and caught myself staring at his mouth. His lips turned up at the sides when he saw me finally notice him. He was smug. I hated smug. Chris was smug.

“Well, screw off then,” I snapped, dismissing him as I turned to walk toward my Honda.

“Oh, come on mad bitch with a busted lip, at least tell me your name.” I turned to see him amused with my behavior.

“Why, so you can brag to them that you hooked up with the hot girl whose lip you busted?” I said as I pointed my fingers at the group of guys giving us little girl waves and smirking. There were three of them and they seemed absolutely thrilled at the spectacle they were watching. I narrowed my eyes at them and pulled at my bikini top to make sure I was still covered.