Lesson Learned

“I need you to come over right away,” she said over the phone, voice urgent, almost on the verge of tears.

“Candace?” I asked surprised, “I haven’t heard from you for years. Are you alright?”

“No, I’m not,” she sobbed, “Please come over, I’m still at the same place.”

As I got in the car, I looked at my watch, noticed it was 1:13 am. I had to go in early for work, but it didn’t matter at this point. Ever since Candace and I had broken up three years ago, I had not heard one word from her. I made a lot of phone calls, because I realized I’d made a mistake, but she changed her number, and we never got to discuss a thing.

After a couple months of being heavily depressed and on the verge of losing my job, I got over it.

I was very excited to see her.

Pulling up to her driveway, I noticed that she was standing in the shadows on her porch.

She ran up to the side of my car and when I got out, she gave me a hug.

“Thank god you came,” she said.

“Are you alright?” I asked, suddenly nervous like it was a first date, “Should we go somewhere to talk?”

“We’ll talk later, just come in,” she said, turning briefly to glance at me, “I knew you’d come.”

When we got to the porch, she pushed open the door, there was a light, some voices coming from her kitchen.

I felt Candice shove me inside and then I was on the floor, ears ringing, the left side of my face a broken bone of pain.

“So this is your boyfriend,” said a nasal voice somewhere out in the darkness.

“Well,” said the voice hovering close enough to exude stale cigarettes, “We’ll make sure you never steal from us again.”