Defying Fate With My Ultimate Black Card

Christian stands outside his own front door with a bouquet of roses in one hand and a paper bag of Chinese food in the other. Jessica loves the drunken noodles from that place on Grand Avenue, the one with the red lanterns out front, and he waited forty minutes because they forgot his order. He doesn't mind the wait. He minds very few things when it comes to her. That is the problem, and he knows it, but knowing a problem and fixing it are two different animals. The door is already unlocked. This registers as strange because Jessica always locks it. She grew up in a neighborhood where you locked everything, even the bathroom door, and old habits don't die. Christian pushes the door open with his shoulder because his hands are full, and he calls out her name. No answer. The living room is empty but not abandoned. Her beige cardigan is draped over the arm of the couch, the one she wears when she gets cold watching television. Her flats are kicked off by the coffee table, one on its side, the other upright. A half empty glass of white wine sits on a coaster, and the bottle is on the counter, no cap. She hasn't been gone long. Then he hears voices from the bedroom. Her voice first. A low laugh, the kind she uses when she is being coaxed into something. Christian knows that laugh. He has been on the receiving end of it more times than he can count, usually late at night when she wants him to stay up with her instead of sleeping. Then a man answers, and Christian stops walking. The man's voice is familiar. Too familiar. It has that confidence, that slight drawl at the end of every sentence like the speaker has all the time in the world and knows you will wait for him. Christian knows that voice because he has heard it his whole life. It belongs to his older brother William. Christian stands in the hallway for a long moment. He tells himself he is hearing things. The walls are thin, maybe William is in the apartment next door, maybe the television is on somewhere. But the sound is coming from his bedroom, from behind his door, and there is no television playing. He sets the flowers and the bag of food on the floor, careful not to make noise, and he walks forward. "Next time he's out, give me a call," William says, and his voice is clear now, unmistakable. "Can't wait to get more of your delicious pussy." “You bet I will.” She giggled. Christian's hand finds the bedroom door. It is open a c***k, just enough to see inside, but he does not look through the c***k. He pushes the door open all the way. Jessica is sitting on the edge of the bed in nothing but her black lace underwear. Her hair is down, the way she only wears it at home or on special occasions, and her lipstick is smeared just slightly at the corner of her mouth. The ring is still on her finger. The ring he saved for two years to buy, working double shifts at the warehouse, skipping lunches, driving a car that broke down twice a month because he put every extra dollar toward that diamond. She is wearing it while she sits half naked with his brother. William is buttoning his shirt. He is down to his boxers and his top buttons are still undone, showing his chest. His hair is messy in a way that tells Christian exactly what happened here. William looks up when the door opens, and his expression does not change. He keeps buttoning. "What's going on here?" Christian asks. His voice sounds strange to his own ears, far away, like someone else is speaking. Jessica pulls the blanket over her body, which Christian finds insulting. She was not hiding anything a second ago, but now that he has seen it, she wants to cover up, like he is some stranger. "Are you cheating on me with him?" Christian yells, and the sound of his own volume surprises him. He does not yell often. He was raised to believe that yelling is what people do when they have run out of words, and he has never liked running out of words. Jessica waves a hand at him like she is shooing a fly. "Calm down." "Why should I calm down?" He points at William, who is now tucking his shirt into his pants like he has all the time in the world. "Of all people, you cheated with him?" She stands up, and the blanket falls away. She does not pick it back up. Instead she walks toward William, her bare feet silent on the carpet, and she leans into his side. William puts his arm around her waist like he has been doing it for years. Maybe he has. Christian does not know anymore. "It's not my fault you're the sorry excuse for a son and a husband," Jessica says. Her voice is calm, almost bored. "If I was going to take your last name, it better not be tied to you." Christian stares at her. He remembers the night he proposed, how she cried, how she threw her arms around his neck and whispered yes into his ear, how the restaurant clapped for them. That was two months ago. Not more than Sixty days ago. Now she is standing in his bedroom in her underwear with his brother's hand on her hip, and she looks at Christian like he is the one who did something wrong. "Jessica," he says, and his voice breaks on the second syllable. "Why?" William laughs. That easy laugh, the one that always made Christian feel small when they were kids. "What, you expect her to keep up with your useless ass?" He pulls Jessica tighter against him, and she smiles up at him. "Ever since we were kids, you have been bullshit at everything you do. Always crying about how you would retire Mom and Dad. But here you are, struggling to feed yourself, and you want to add a wife to your trouble. Face reality, asshole." Christian feels something c***k inside his chest. Not his ribs, not yet, but something deeper. A seam that was already weak. He has spent his whole life being compared to William. William got the grades, William got the promotions, William got the girlfriends, William got their parents' pride. Christian got the leftovers. But Jessica was supposed to be different. Jessica was supposed to be his. And he could NOT stand watching his hand on her hip. "Are you f*****g mad?" Christian yells, and his voice is raw now, scraped clean of anything polite. "That's my wife. That's my f*****g wife, you asshole." He launches at William. He knows, even as he does it, that this is a mistake. William is bigger by thirty pounds of muscle. William played sports in high school and college. William has been in real fights, the kind that happen in parking lots at two in the morning. Christian has not thrown a punch since he was fifteen years old, and that one missed. William catches Christian's fist in his palm like he is catching a ball. He shoves Christian backward into the dresser, and the corner of the dresser digs into Christian's lower back. Christian tries to swing again, but William is already inside his reach, and the first punch lands on Christian's cheek. The second punch lands on his mouth. The third punch lands on his temple, and Christian's head snaps to the side and hits the mirror hanging on the wall. The mirror shatters. Glass rains down on Christian's shoulders and neck, and he feels sharp pieces digging into his scalp. His vision blurs. William does not stop. He keeps punching, each one harder than the last, until Christian cannot tell which direction the punches are coming from. His mouth fills with something blood. His arms hang heavy at his sides, and he cannot lift them anymore. William steps back. He is barely breathing hard. He looks down at Christian like a man looking at a stain on his shoe, and then he turns to Jessica. "Follow me home before this rabid animal does something stupid to you." Jessica hesitates. She looks at her wardrobe, at the dresses hanging inside, at the shoes lined up on the floor. "My clothes are here. There is no time to move everything." William shakes his head and smiles. "Do not worry. I will buy you a whole new wardrobe. Hell, I will buy the whole store for you." She smiles back at him, the same smile Christian fell in love with. “You are the best.” She says, Then she pulls the ring off her finger. The diamond catches the light for a second. She drops it on the floor beside Christian's head, and it lands in a small puddle of blood from his split lip. She takes William's hand, and they walk out of the bedroom together. Christian hears her laugh again as they cross the living room. He hears the front door open. He hears it close. He lies on the floor in the broken glass, staring at the ceiling. There is a water stain on the plaster that he has been meaning to fix for months. The ring sits an inch from his face, his blood smeared across the band. He does not move. He does not close his eyes. He just lies there and lets the pain wash over him, wave after wave, and he waits for the night to end