FROM MEXICO WITH LOVE

This excerpt comes from an exercise where we wrote the scene of a fight between ourselves (or our narrators) and a lover. Drop into the middle of the fight. Use as much dialogue as possible.

"Did you fuck her?" I said.

He looked at me with his big blue eyes almost smiling.

"Don't smile, this isn't funny." I was shouting now and I didn't care who heard me.

"I had relations with her," he corrected.

"You fucking fucked her. You just had to have the stripper. Was it worth it?" I was sorry I'd asked the moment I said the words.

He wouldn't look at me now.

"Does she know I'm here?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. I haven't heard from her in weeks."

"Oh, are you sad? Was that hard for you? You fucking liar. I knew it. How dare you?" I banged out of the house, hot tears on my face, and kicked the fence with all I had. I kicked again and again until I heard a pop. I stopped, out of breath now, and peered at the latch which had come splintering out of the wood. How could I have been so stupid. Of course he had fucked her. He always did. He found them, flirted with them, dumped me, fucked them, and then came simpering back.

I had to go far enough away that he wouldn't follow. I had to get a fucking grip or I would go out of my mind.

He came outside. He stood behind me, waiting.

I faced him. "I'm leaving," I said.

"Are you coming back?"

"I don't know," I said. Because I didn't. I wanted to say no. I wanted to believe I would never let him touch me again. But I couldn't promise myself that.

When he said he would marry me I thought it would make a difference. I thought I'd found my independence in Mexico and I had my power back. But he didn't marry me. He fucked the neighbor with the Dolly Parton tits three years later and I ran to L.A. this time. He followed me. It seemed I had nowhere else to go but hell. So I went. Raven was there to guide me across the water.