Layce Gardner - More Than a Kiss

The doorbell rang. Amy and Isabel both looked toward the ding-donging. "That'll be Chad. You want me to get rid of him for you?" Isabel asked.

Amy shook her head. "No. I better do it or he'll never stop. Can you let him in while I get dressed?"

"Sure," Isabel said. She hopped off the counter and was turning to the door when it flew open. There was a loud crunch as the doorknob punched through the wall behind it.

Chad stood in the doorway, snorting like a bull. He pawed the ground with one foot and looked from Amy to Isabel and back to Amy again. He looked psychotic with his eyes rolling around in his head and he was still wearing the filthy hospital gown. His hair was even more rat’s-nest-y and there was a pungent odor surrounding him.

"What are you doing?" Amy finally asked, wrapping her towel around her tighter. She felt at a distinct disadvantage standing naked with only a towel separating herself and her dignity.

"Where is she?" Chad snorted, looking around wildly.

"What?" Amy asked. "Who?" she also asked even though she was pretty sure she knew who he was talking about.

Isabel put her hands on her hips and lifted her chin in the air. "Do you mind? We were having a private conversation and then you just burst in and break the wall? Why the hell did you ring the doorbell if you’re just going to barge in anyway?"

"Do you mind?" Chad echoed her like they were grade school again. "I would like to have a private conversation with my fiancée. And I rang the doorbell because it was the polite thing to do.”

"Fiancee?" Amy said.

“Can you give us a moment, please?” Chad said.

Isabel looked to Amy. Amy nodded.

Isabel poked one finger into Chad's chest and said, "One minute and that’s it. I got my eye on you, Bub. You mess with Amy and I'll go Sweeny Todd all over your ass."

"Sweeney Todd?" Chad asked. He lurched and slurred. “Who’s she? Another lesbo?”

Isabel continued, "You so much as look at her cross-eyed and Chad will be the other white meat."

"What's that mean?" he said, backing into the hallway.

Isabel squinted in her most menacing manner and poked him a few more times, saying, "Chad. It's what's for dinner."

"Huh?" he said, more confused than ever. He put his hand on the doorframe to steady himself.

Isabel backed down the hallway, pointing two fingers to her eyes then pointing the two fingers at Chad in the universal "I'm watching you" signal.

Chad stumbled back into the bathroom. Amy took a step back and tightened the towel around her body again.

Chad dramatically dropped to one knee and bowed his head as if he were waiting to be knighted by a king. He lifted one hand into the air. There was a diamond ring glittering in the palm of his hand. He looked up at her from under his eyebrows and smiled.

Amy almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. “How on earth did you get that? In your condition, I wouldn’t think anyone would sell you a diamond.”

“I’ve had it. I bought it a long time ago so I’d be ready when the girl of my dreams came along. Besides it was marked down during a going out of business sale. See, I’m fish-oily responsible too.”

“Fish-Oily?”

“Fiscally. I meant fiscally.” Chad blinked away actual, honest-to-God tears. "Will you marry me?" he whispered. "Will you become Mrs. Chad Dorring?"

Amy stared wide-eyed. Her brain simply wasn't processing this turn of events.

"I've wanted you all along, you know," he said. "And I can tell you want me, too. No matter what they're saying about you."

"Who? What're they saying?" she asked.

"That you're a dyke. But don't worry. I told everyone you weren't."

Amy stared at Chad’s face. That shit-eating grin. That simple dimple. That toothy smile that blinged even brighter than the diamond ring in his outstretched palm. Something deep inside her broke open. She had never been too great at math, but she could add two and two. The stalker was Chad. It finally made sense. Jordan’s stalker was Chad, not Petronella. How stupid could she be? “How stupid do you think I am?” she said.

Chad blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You slashed Jordan’s bike tires. You put Bible signs in her yard. You put poop on her porch and lit it on fire. You come into my house, uninvited, and make green goopy stuff and get your finger snapped off by a lobster. You interrupt a perfectly romantic evening between me and my date. And all you can say is ‘marry me?’”

“I love you?” he said more like a question.

“You don’t know the meaning of love. You have never loved anybody but yourself, Chad Dorring. And I think you are a despicable pile of dog doody and I wouldn’t stomp you out if you were on fire. Now move out of my way.”

Chad rose to his feet and stretched out both of his arms, blocking the doorway. “You’re not going after her.”

“Get out of my way.”

Chad stood his ground. He cleared his throat then said, “It’s either me or her.”

Amy couldn’t believe her ears. Was this sicko really offering her a Sophie’s Choice moment? Without further delay, Amy said simply, “Her.”

“You’ll regret saying that,” Chad sputtered.

A tiny drop of Chad’s spittle hit her in the face. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. Amy had a notoriously long fuse. But once it blew, it was worse than an atom bomb. She wadded up her fist and did something she had wanted to do ever since she first laid eyes on Chad. She socked him right square in the butt-chin.

Chad’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped to the floor. Amy stepped over his body and ran for the front door.

Amy Runs

Amy ran out the front door, thinking about the movie The Graduate . She felt like she was Dustin Hoffman’s character, Benjamin Braddock. Not the Benjamin that slept with an older woman at the beginning of the movie. She felt like the Benjamin that ran after Elaine and pounded on the glass at the church and grabbed the bride and rode off into the sunset by bus at the end of the movie. However, Benjamin had been wearing shoes. He had on pants. All Amy had on was a towel. She only ran as far as the corner when she stopped. She turned and began to limp back home.

A car pulled up alongside her. Great, Amy thought, just frickin’ frackin’ great. This was exactly what she didn’t need. She kept her eyes straight ahead. She didn’t want to give the driver any more ideas.

“Hop in,” the driver said.

Amy looked over at the car. Isabel was behind the wheel of her Jeep, motioning for her to get in.

“What’re you doing?” Amy said.

“Are we going to go get the woman you love or not?”

Amy smiled and hopped in the car. Isabel gestured to a gym bag in the back seat. “My workout clothes are in that bag. They’re clean. Put them on.”

“Thank you,” Amy said. “I’ll name my first born after you.”

“I hope it’s not a boy,” Isabel said, “Or he’ll get beat up a lot at school.”

Amy opened the gym bag and pulled on a pair of baggy gray sweatpants and a T-shirt. Isabel threw the car into D, saying, “Let’s do this thing.” She peeled off down the street.

Amy looked out the back window. "You're not going to believe this," she said, "but Chad is running after us."

"This whole thing about you being with a woman has sent him into hyper-drive," Isabel said.

Isabel took the next corner without slowing down, leaving Chad standing in the middle of the street waving the wedding ring up in the air. It caught the light from the street lamp and flashed. He resembled a deranged Statue of Liberty.

As they drove across town, Amy got cold feet. “What am I going to say to Jordan? I mean we almost had sex and then my not-boyfriend comes over and proposes to me. Think how that must look to her.”