Don't Get Mad, Get Even

The Chevelle needed a lot of work and an equal amount of love when Rick got it. Originally, Georgia told him to get rid of it. "Either sell it or just give it away," she said. "You don't know shit about cars, Rick."

Eventually both Rick's and my begging and pleading got to her and the deal was that as long as he was working on it, the car could stay. But she wanted to see regular progress and if he went two weeks without doing something on the car, it had to go.

So for the last year and a half, Rick and I went out to the garage at least four or five days a week. It was as good for me as it was for him. It took my mind off of school and the pressure I was under to perform there. And for Rick, he got something to brag about and when we were done he would have a hell of a car.

I had often heard Georgia telling Sarah that she blamed me for the car. "Rick was never interested in cars until he started hanging out with Steve. And now that we were no longer friends Rick's dumb ass would still have to work on the car. But he had no idea what to do, how to do it, or why to do it. He had no idea where to even go to find out what he needed to do.

Knowing Rick the way I did, I knew what he would do. He would go out to the garage several times a week and make noise and pretend he was working on the car. And that was how I would get him.

As soon as Rick's came out of his house to head for work I watched him. He looked over at my house longingly and I wondered. Did he miss me and our friendship, or did he miss fucking my wife?

He looked very subdued as he got into his car and drove away. I guessed that Georgia had taken a chunk out of his ass when she finally caught up to him. I wondered again how she could put up with it. Even if I could manage to wrap my head around the concept of forgiving Sarah, there was no fucking way I could do it three times.

I ran upstairs to my bathroom and looked into their house. Georgia was heading into her bathroom. Knowing the layout of their house from being in it hundreds of times I saw her grabbing clothes in their bedroom and heading into the connected bathroom. The bathroom itself had frosted glass windows so I couldn't see in there. But I wasn't trying to perve on Georgia. I just needed to know where she was and how long she would be there.

So I dashed back down the stairs, grabbed my roll of fishing line and climbed over the fence into their yard. I quickly went into the garage and very loosely tied the end of the fishing line around the Chevelle's hood prop. I also pulled the hood prop out of the hole in the heavy metal hood that supported it when it was in the up position.

At first I was in trouble. I couldn't get the prop to stay in position. Then I notice a tiny dent in the metal, about two inches further back. I gently seated the top of the prop in the dent and it held but very precariously. I strung the fishing line out of the garage's side window and over the top of my privacy fence. I then ran the line to my deck and wrapped it around the arm of one of my deck chairs several times. I cut and tied the line there.

I stepped away from the chair and even from a few feet away. I could barely notice the line. If I could barely see it and I knew it was there, I was sure that someone who didn't know to look for it would never notice it.

As I went into the house and made breakfast, I had a smile on my face. As I slept, I dreamed of Sarah. In some of the dreams she was still my Sarah. But in others I dreamed of her fucking my ex best friend and calling me all kinds of names. When I woke at about five in the afternoon, I was bewildered.

I heard Rick's car stereo as he pulled into the driveway. He looked as if he was about to come over to my house, but he turned and went into his own. It was just before six p.m. I had about four hours before I needed to head for work.

A few moments after Rick had gone inside his house, the screaming started. Rick and Georgia were at it again. Georgia was calling him every name in the book and Rick was back peddling and apologizing. Finally Georgia screamed at him to get out of her sight. Rick told her again that he was sorry and he loved her. He swore that it would never happen again. Then he said something that I found interesting. "She came after me," he whined. "I told her no at first, but she kept after me. I'm fifty, Georgia. It was too flattering to have a woman that young begging me for it."

"So you were so flattered that you forgot you had a wife and three kids, huh?" She spat. "You were so flattered that you forgot about how much it would hurt your best God Damned friend, huh?"

"I'm sorry Georgia," he whined.

"I guess you forgot about how long it took us to get over the last time you did this, huh?" she asked. "Maybe, we won't make it after all. Maybe, I should do what Steve is doing and see an attorney about a divorce."

"Please, Georgia," he whined. "Anything but that. I can't lose you and my kids. I know I don't deserve it, but can I have one last chance. Georgia, I love you more than anything. It's been years since I made a mistake. It won't ever happen again."

"Just get the fuck away from me," she hissed.

"I'm going out to the garage to work on the car," he said. Georgia's laughter was louder than her screams had been.

"Why?" she asked. "We all know that you don't know how to do anything on that car without Steve being there. You'll probably just fuck that up like you have our family."

"I just wanted you to know where I was," he said. "I love you Georgia. Until you trust me again, I won't go anywhere or do anything without telling you where I am."

"Just get away from me Rick," she said.

Rick went out into his garage and I too hoped he wouldn't fuck the car up. I watched him from my deck. My deck was built on two levels. There was a small area with a few chairs that led to three steps that descended to the level of the rest of the deck. Our back porch had been so high that building the entire deck at the height of the back porch and back door would have required a lot more lumber to make it stable. It would have also required much more maintenance.

But the good thing was that I could actually see over the fence and into Rick's garage. Georgia and Sarah had often sat on that higher area of the deck to watch Rick and I, while they talked. They often sent us pizza and watched as we wondered who had ordered it. But that had been in happier times.

As I watched Rick puttering around his garage, I was almost giddy. I was so intent on watching Rick and waiting for him to do what I wanted him to do that I failed to even notice when my fence opened and Georgia stepped into my yard.

"You and I need to have a talk, Mister," she said suddenly. "You knew all along, who that skanky bitch had cheated with, but you didn't tell me ... Why?" As she stared at me, her anger caused her chest to expand and contract with her elevated breathing rate. All Georgia wore at that moment was a T-shirt, with what had to be an industrial strength bra under it. Suddenly I understood what they meant in all of those romance novels by heaving bosom. Georgia was barely over five feet tall. I had always thought that she was plump, but now I could see that it was simply modesty.

She normally wore clothes, like a lot of women of her generation, to disguise her body or hide her lines. I remembered back a couple of days ago to the swimsuit she'd worn in the hot tub. All of those ruffles and that stupid long leg line of the suit hid, instead of showed off her curves.

At forty five years old, Georgia was no spring chicken, but her body could have belonged to one. Her big boobs were definitely springy if not chicken-y. She'd had three kids so I'm not going to say that she had a tiny waist. But her stomach was flat and taught and she had those child bearing hips. Georgia's ass wasn't as big as Sarah's, but those wide hips were astoundingly sexy. Her legs were tight and well shaped and ...

"Say something, Steve!" she ordered pulling me out of staring at her body.

"Georgia ..." I uttered. Then nothing.

"Steve, this may surprise you but I've known my name since before I was one year old," she spat. "What I don't know is why the fuck you didn't tell me. The funny part is that I felt so badly for you. I felt like you and I had a connection, when we talked. I felt as if we'd become better friends because of our shared experiences. But obviously I was the only one who felt it. For you guys the old boy network always fuckin' wins. Don't sell out your boys ... Right? Even when your BOY is the one stabbing you in the back. Can't violate that Bro Code. Bros before Hos, right?"

"Georgia, shut up," I said. "You have the whole thing wrong."

It was a really weird moment. I was trying not to stare at her body. I was also trying to keep my eyes on her asshole of a husband and he had just gotten into the position I wanted him in.

"Georgia, you weren't wrong," I said. "I felt it too. I felt so much better about everything when we talked. You did that for me. And when you told me about how you felt and what you did when Rick cheated on you I felt so sorry for you. You are a beautiful lady and an even more beautiful person. I just couldn't do it to you. Somewhere down deep in my heart I didn't want you to be hurt again. I was already in pain, why should I give that same pain to someone who was only trying to help me. Sure I wanted revenge against that asshole and against Sarah too. But I didn't want to get it by dragging you into the abyss with me." She just stared at me and her face softened.

"Like you said, Georgia, you have three kids with him. Three young kids, none of whom is even twelve years old. The two of you can't just split up and wreck your family. So as angry as you get over him, this will not be a deal breaker. Your kids deserve to grow up in a complete home. So why should I do something or tell you something to make your life worse. I guess I thought I was being a friend. I was trying to spare you some pain by just taking it all by myself. I guess I thought I was suffering for both of us. What they did was bad enough. I thought it would be better with only one victim. I'm so sorry, Georgia." Her eyes filled with tears and she reached out to me for a hug. And just as we made contact, I yanked my fishing line. We heard a crash as the Chevelle's big metal hood slammed down like lightning striking the earth.

Rick's earsplitting shriek of pain happened almost simultaneously. He kept screaming and Georgia and I both reacted. She reacted to his screams on an instinctive level. I reacted because I was a trained medical person. Even before Georgia was off of the deck I had bolted straight to the fence and scrambled over the six foot structure.

Georgia had to go through the gate and back around to her house and through her gate. But the time she got there and went over to Rick I was inside of the car pulling the hood release. As soon as I released it, I flipped the catch and pulled the hood up.

Rick moaned in pain and tried to tuck his hands under his armpits. "Rick, stop moving your hands," I yelled. "Georgia, go get me some towels!"

Georgia turned and headed for her house. I saw the faces of her kids in the back doorway. Those innocent little faces brimmed with curiosity and fear.

I sat Rick down and tried to examine his hands. He was sweating and had trouble remaining still. "Stop moving God damn it!" I yelled at him.

I looked at his hands. They were both mangled and swelling rapidly. But they were intact. "The good news ..." I said just as Georgia ran up with a stack of towels. "... is that you haven't lost any fingers you have deep gashes on both hands."

I felt his hands and shook my head. "Rick, I think you have several broken bones on each hand. Georgia, get me a lot of ice and any pain killers you have. Rick, get up. I'm taking you to the ER."

I slowly walked him towards his car. He leaned on me heavily. His hands hurt so badly that he could barely walk. Georgia met us in their driveway with the ice and ran back in the house for the painkillers.

"He doesn't seem to be in a lot of pain," she said.

"He's in shock," I told her. "Trust me, in a few minutes he'll be screaming his head off." I packed Rick's hands in ice and wrapped the towels around them. I made him swallow a handful of Tylenol as soon as Georgia brought them. Georgia ran her kids over to the house across the street and got Mary Sue to watch them. Several of our neighbors were outside and watching us. Georgia came back and got into the car with us and we took off for the hospital.

When we got to the ER, I got one of the residents to look at Rick immediately. I told him what had happened and he noticed something that I hadn't. Rick had a huge bruise on the side of his head. The hood had obviously hit his head before it closed on his hands.

Rick was sent to CT to have his head looked at. They would rule out any type of head trauma and then we'd take care of his hands. One of the nurses that I had never seen before started an IV pain killer on him. They would need it to keep Rick calm and stable so he didn't move during the CT.

The doctor looked at me. "X-Ray his hands as soon as he's back from CT. I didn't get a chance to do a thorough examination because of his pain and the head wound. But he has at least one mis-aligned metacarpal fracture. I'm calling the Ortho guys to have them ready."

"I'm on it," I said. "I'm going to change into scrubs and do it myself."

"You work here?" asked the new nurse. I just nodded. She was really pretty. Georgia pulled me over to the side and started asking me questions. I explained everything that was going on to her and had her sit in the waiting room. I went to the locker room and changed into my spare set of scrubs and went back down to the ER.

Rick hadn't gotten back from CT yet when I got to the X-Ray room. My supervisor was on duty. She was doing a chest X-Ray on an older woman when I walked in.

"Hey, you're really early," she smiled. "You aren't supposed to relieve me for about four hours."

I explained everything to her. "I'll probably do his exams and then take him and his wife home and come back at my normal time," I said.

"Or you could take the night off," she said. "I can always call one of the contingent or part timers to come in. They'd be glad to have the hours."

"Not on a Sunday night at midnight," I said. "Besides, with everything going on between Sarah and me, I need a heavy dose of normal and regular in my life. Work really helps."

Rick's hands were worse than I thought. His injuries weren't life threatening though. The CT revealed that the swelling in his head was only a superficial contusion. His hands were terrible. He had mis-aligned fractures to the three central metacarpals on both hands. They all had to be reduced. Even with the pain killers, I was sure Rick went through a lot of pain.

The pretty new nurse stuck to me like glue throughout the process. We watched as the orthopedic specialists set the fractures and casted both of Rick's hands. Georgia and I wheeled him out to the car in a wheel chair and took him home afterwards. Rick was so out of it from the painkillers that he fell asleep in the car.

"Thanks Stevie," Georgia said to me as we drove home. "I was so out of it. You handled everything so well."

"It's just another night at work for me Georgia," I said.

"Then you're really very fucking good at what you do," she said. "Everyone listened to you. You knew exactly what to do and what was going on. They started helping Rick as soon as we walked in and you started telling people what was going on. I hate to say this but Rick got special treatment because you were there. Some of the people I spoke to while I was in the waiting room had been there for a while already when we walked in. Rick is really lucky to have you as a friend."

"Georgia, I wouldn't exactly call us friends," I spat. "You can't be friends with a guy who stabbed you in the back. I only helped him because it's what I was trained to do. If I had given it any thought, I probably would have just laughed at him."

"No you wouldn't have," she said. "That isn't the kind of person you are. And our conversation from before is not over ... We still have a lot of things to talk about. Did that slut even tell you why she did it?"

"I haven't really spoken to her very much," I said. "And I don't intend to."

"Don't you want to know why?" she asked.

"Georgia, I don't think it matters," I said. "There is no reason I can think of to justify what they did. All her telling me would do is to give her some kind of closure or ease her mind. I don't give a damn about her unburdening herself and easing her suffering. What about my suffering? Fuck her!"

"The asshole back there claims that she went after him," she said. "I would love to find out why? I mean come on ... I love him, but he's no sex symbol for God's sake. He's a balding fifty year old guy with a pot belly. Why the fuck would she go after him?"

"Then you talk to her Georgia," I spat. "Just leave me out of it. I already have a list of divorce lawyers to call first thing in the morning."

I drove us home and helped Georgia get Rick into the house and into bed. "I told him not to try to work on that fucking car without you," she said. She had tears on the corners of her eyes. "What an imbecile. He doesn't know shit about cars. He just wants to be one of the cool kids, even at his age. He just wants to fit in and be accepted. You like cars, so he liked cars too."

"Georgia, it's going to be alright," I said. "In three months it'll all be over. Six to eight weeks and he can get the casts off. Then he'll do a couple of physical therapy sessions and some exercises to regain the strength and flexibility in his hands. After that he'll be back to normal. Or at least as normal as Rick can be."

She hugged me again and I was embarrassed but I got an erection as she rubbed those big soft titties against me.

"Don't forget to get his prescription filled. They had him on an IV drip of some very strong stuff at the hospital. When it runs through his system and the pain returns he's going to be screaming," I told her.

I went home and grabbed something to eat. I checked my messages and deleted the ones from Sarah without bothering to listen to them. The whole time I had the biggest smile on my face. I took my food out on my deck and quickly pulled and reeled in my fishing line. I wrapped the small reel up in newspaper and threw it away deep in the bottom of my kitchen garbage can.

With the evidence destroyed, there was no way anyone could link me to what happened. I also had the best witness in the world. I had been talking to the asshole's own wife and was nowhere near him when it happened. I was also the one to heroically rescue him during his injury and to give him first aid.

I laughed thinking about his pain. But the one thing going through my mind was that it still wasn't enough.

I went to work and was met with nothing but drama. Sarah showed up. She claimed she just wanted to make sure that I was okay. One of the neighbors had told her that I had been involved in some sort of accident and went to the hospital with Rick and Georgia.

"It wasn't me," I said. "Rick broke his hands and needed stitches too. Sarah just go home."

"Okay, Honey, I'll go home and wait for you," she said. "I need a key."

"Sarah, when I said home, I meant your parents' house or your sister's apartment or wherever you're staying," I told her. "The more you pester me, the longer it'll be before I'm ready to talk to you."

As she turned to leave, I heard a voice. "Hey X-Ray guy. I thought I should drop by and introduce myself." I recognized the new nurse's voice. It was melodic, very feminine and a touch high pitched. It was the kind of voice you can fall in love with.