Member-only story
Bayou Justice
Microfiction
There’s dumb: Breaking up with your boyfriend while he’s trying to outswim a gator.
There’s dumber: Thinking anybody can outswim a gator. (Well. Maybe I could. I’m a lawyer though, and entitled to a bit of professional courtesy from other reptiles.)
And then there’s me: Hurling a blue velvet ring box at the head of aforementioned boyfriend as he tries to clamber back aboard the airboat. A box containing Great-Grandmother’s antique platinum engagement ring, complete with a hand-cut diamond cluster in a weird little rose motif.
To be clear, it wasn’t my great-grandmother’s ring, but it was somebody’s. My client-slash-jewel-thief wouldn’t lie about a thing like that.
Not that I’d ever find out, considering that the box, the ring, and the last of my composure plummeted into the blackish bayou water of Who-The-Fuck-Knows-Where-We-Are, Louisiana. On the bright side, the half-full bottle of Jack in my other hand remained safe and undisturbed. Priorities, people.
Want to know the dumbest thing of all? Spending the last two years of my otherwise comfortable life believing this guy — this lying, cheating, hasn’t-paid-his-half-of-the-rent-in-forever asswipe— was my boyfriend.
I don’t help him back in the boat. I just watch as he gasps for air, his eyes…
