Page 15 of You've Got Hate Mail
I’m on the verge of crying again, but I’m so tired of crying that I force myself to do something normal and ask a question. “Is it okay if I ask how you went viral?”
“I was dating a pro wrestling mega-fan who asked me to do social media with him. We had a team show—Vibe Check and the Yeet Beast. His suggestion on all of the names. Our costumes too. But when I got more popular than he was, he dumped me, started talking shit about me, then he doxxed me, and?—”
“And I burned my nipple off, so the family decided I shouldn’t live alone anymore and they sent me a keeper,” Aunt Pip interjects.
Mabel nods. “So I came here to hide and help Aunt Pip, and then an old friend from college went viral too, so we invited her to stay for a while, and thensheknew someone who went viral—that’s Ginny—so I offered her a place to lie low too. My college friend left, Ginny stayed, and everything eventually evolved into the commune-ish thing we have now.”
The back door bangs open, and the man who startled me in the bathroom—Heath—walks in like he, too, has been told to come and go as needed anywhere on the property.
He probably has.
“It’s the man of the hour,” Aunt Pip says.
He freezes and gives the three of us a once-over, completely poker-faced. One of his deep-set green eyes is bloodshot in a way that suggests I hit him as hard as the bruise developing on my knuckles suggests I did.
His shaggy brown hair seems to need a cut, his square jaw’s coated with a week’s worth of stubble, and the crooked quality to his nose suggests I’m not the first person to have knocked him in the face.
A few months ago, I did a lifestyle segment on boxing as the new fitness craze and nearly got my own nose broken in the ring. That’s where I learned to punch.
I wonder if he boxes too.
If he got hit during his EMT days.
Or if he has some kind of dark history beyond losing his wife so young.
But if he has a dark history, it’s taught him kindness and compassion.
That’s what struck me most, in the worst kind of way, about him in the bathroom.
His kindness and compassion.
He covered me with a robe.
Didn’t raise his voice with me.
Didn’t sigh.
Didn’t complain about me punching him beyond the initial surpriseddammit.
I got the feeling he wanted to, but he didn’t. He just helped me.
And just like they did in the bathroom as he was asking about my injuries, my nipples are puckering and my tingles are tingling in a place I’ve vowed to never get a tingle again.
Both because I can’t see any man ever wanting me after my recent notoriety, and also because taking care of the tingles myself means getting naked.
At least from the waist down.
Which I amnotdoingever ever everagain.
“How’s your pussy?” Aunt Pip asks him.
“Loud,” he answers, then he turns to the freezer, grabs an ice pack, and leaves again after nodding to Mabel and me.
“He has a cat,” Mabel murmurs to me.
“I didn’t mean to punch him,” I say again.
“I can’t say I’m glad you did it, but Iamglad to know you have some self-defense skills,” Mabel replies. “If you want to practice, Samantha’s wife, Olivia, is a tae kwon do instructor. Some of our guests find that it helps with confidence to brush up on sparring skills. Or for good technique if you hit a point where you need to whale on a punching bag to work out anything.”
