Tis the Season for Revenge: A Holiday Romantic Comedy

That peace and happiness last about an hour before they shatter like a Christmas ornament, tiny, thin shards of glittering glass embedding into the carpet for you to step on for weeks to come.

“You know, if you’d looked like that for me, we could have worked out,” I hear behind me as Damien and I stand talking to his assistant, Tanya. She’s sweet and adorable and doesn’t take any shit from Damien, and I find it absolutely endearing watching her tease him and put him in his place. Even more, watching Damien actually blush when she does it.

Hilarious.

But that voice breaks me from the happy spell I let myself fall into.

Because I know the voice.

I also know the slur that’s woven through that voice.

Some people get silly when they drink.

Some people get tired.

Richard gets mean.

Never violent, never forceful.

But he was always the type to say all of those mean things that you keep to yourself out loud when he drank.

It was the one thing about him I never told the girls, knowing instinctively that if I did, they would be worried. That if they knew that part, they’d work to get me to leave.

Damien turns to face Richard, a look of confusion crossing his face.

“What?” he asks, and god. God. I had every stupid hope we could escape this mess, that I could be the one who told Damien, that I could tell him gently, give him my side, and how everything changed, but no.

As always, Richard is fucking up everything good in the world.

Except this time, it’s my own damn fault.

“Was this your plan? Come to the party I never fucking brought you to like a hooker? And then what? Rub it in my face?”

“No, I—”

“What the fuck is going on?” Damien asks, but his hand stays on my waist.

All of my worst fears are unraveling, showing him my rotten intentions, but he’s still close. It’s a cruel punishment, getting to have this peace he gives me, him touching me and holding me during this, knowing it’s going to end.

“Abbie is my ex,” Richard says, but his eyes, half open, can barely focus on me or Damien.

Fuck, he must have been doing shots ever since he didn’t get that promotion.

My body freezes beneath Damien’s touch, and of course, as the man who is so in tune with my body and my reactions and my goddamned emotions, he notices. He looks down at me.

“She probably started fucking you to get back at me. That’s what whores do.” My head turns to Richard. “Or were you fucking him before that? All those times I told you what an ass he was, you said I should try and win him over.” He weaves where he stands a bit. “Instead, you were a whore, fucking my enemy.”

“I am not a whore. I can’t believe you would even—”

“Your mom was a whore. You’re a whore. I bet your sister is one too. That’s how she caught Hutchins.” He laughs a mean, drunken laugh. “I bet your sister is better in bed, though. That’s how she caught a billionaire. That’s also why you couldn’t keep me.”

My body goes cold with humiliation and utter horror.

“Richard, that’s—”

“What’s going on here?” Damien asks, looking from Richard to me and back again, putting the pieces together slowly and carefully.

“Is that true, Abigail? Is he your ex?”

“No, Damien. No I—”

“You said you knew him, that we needed to talk.” The wheels are turning in his mind. He’s so damn smart. There’s no way he won’t be able to figure out the truth. “Fuck. Is he the ex?” he asks, and I pull my lips into my mouth, rolling them and trying to fight the watering of my eyes.

Jesus. I’m a horrible person.

I fucked up so badly.

I nod.

A strange, unexpected softness enters his eyes for a split second before it’s covered with that same anger and confusion.

He’s angry with me.

As he should be.

And his next words cement that he understands the full picture now.

“Did you know I was his boss?”

My stomach drops.

The blood leaves my face, leaving me light-headed.

I know.

I know this is done. I see it in his eyes, in the hurt there, the confusion. I can feel it in his hand that grips harder, the hand still on my waist, like the world is playing a sick trick on me and using that touch to make sure I feel all the harm I did.

“I . . .” I want to say no. I want to deny it. I want to tell him that Richard is insane and rude and jealous and we can talk about this later when I can tell him the full story without onlookers.

But he deserves more.

He deserves everything. And he deserves the truth, most of all.

“Yes,” I say, locking eyes with him.

I try to tell him everything there.

That this started out as fun.

That this started out as revenge.

That this started out as a stupid fucking game.

That it changed . . . and we both know it.

I pray he sees it all in my eyes. Pray he remembers how I tried so many times to tell him, that the world got in the way, and yeah, I should have tried harder, but here we are.

Here we are, and I’m falling for this man as I’m breaking his trust.

And my stupid fucking ex won’t shut his dumb mouth and leave me in my puddle of misery.

“Of course she knew. She was with me for four years. Always wanted to come to this party, didn’t you, Abbie? So I guess you finally got your wish,” Richard says as if he’s a part of this extremely personal conversation. “But fuck, went right back to dressing like a whore, didn’t you? God, didn’t I train you better than this?” he asks. I want to vomit.

Flashbacks of the years of shit he said to me, of the way he crushed my self-worth into the ground, come back in full force.

Why did I wear this dress?

“Train her?” Damien asks, his fingers digging into my hip. It might be painful in the real world, but right now, I’m living in a nightmare, and it’s the only thing keeping me tethered to the ground.

And if this is the last touch I get from Damien, I hope it leaves bruises.

“Didn’t she tell you? I tried for years to make her into a good wife. To make her dress appropriately, to be quiet and pretty. But no. She never had that ability. Such a shame.” His eyes look me up and down. “I dumped her on Halloween, you know. She was going to come to the company party dressed like a slut.” His eyes travel my body, greedily eating my exposed legs and curves. “Just like she is now.”

“Halloween,” Damien says, and the cogs are working in his mind. He’s putting together that match. The account I made on Halloween, the swipe he made on that same night.

“Damien, please, let me—”

“God, this is rich!” Richard says with a drunken laugh. “You didn’t know. God, what great skill you have, sir. Fuck. Couldn’t even tell that she was a hooker dressed up to impress you.” He turns to me, venom in his eyes.

“You thought you could win? Thought you could beat me?” he asks me like he’s some champion in a game we’re all losing. “You’re pathetic, Abbie. Always were. A loser who never grew up. You were never worth the time I wasted on you.”

Something in me snaps.

I lose all grasp on reality, on decency. I forget where we are, in a fancy, expensive party room filled with some of the most powerful people in New York.

I forget that Damien is on my arm, that I should forget Richard and try and salvage what I can.

Instead, I find myself.

I find the last piece of that puzzle I’ve been putting together for two months.

When I met Richard, I was whole. A beautifully flawed portrait that was a testament to my dreams and hopes and the life I had lived up until then.

Richard saw that beauty and decided the sky wasn’t the right shade of blue. He asked me to fix it.

And I did.

Then the trees were the wrong variety, so he covered them up, taping them over with magazine cutouts to see what he wanted.

And I let him.

Then he took scissors to the whole thing, cutting and shaping it and tossing aside bits he didn’t like until he just scrapped the entire project and threw it away.

He threw me away.

And I’ve spent two months finding those pieces, pasting them together with tape and drunken nights with my friends and hair dye and hot cocoa in the snow and tickets to the Rockettes with my sister and a chaotic plan to win back me.

I thought I got them all, that I’d found all of the scraps and I was whole and finding what I looked like with the scars and folds and tears and glue.

But Richard kept a piece for himself, a trophy.

And being here in this room with him, I got it back.

I wonder if all this time, I was working less toward revenge and more to get that last piece of me.

I open my mouth, and it all falls out.

“You know what? Fuck you, Richard. You’re right. I did this all to fuck with you. You crushed me. I spent years waiting for you to commit, wasted so much of my life doing everything for you, and you never even cared. So many nights I’d stay up late when you had to work on a big case, making sure you had food and coffee. Nights I stayed up waiting for you to come home when you were out with the guys, probably fucking some other woman. All the backhanded comments you gave me, and I took them as fucking advice. I thought they were things I needed to do to get you to commit, to fucking love me. Lose weight. Dress differently. Get fucking Botox. Speak quieter. Dye my hair. I became less for you. Because I thought if I became less, you would give me more.” I step away from Damien, getting closer to Richard.

A tether has snapped as I iron out the new version of me, and I’m free.

That final tether Richard tied to me over the years we were together to keep me in his grasp, it’s gone.

And I’m free. I’m whole.

Maybe that’s what the true point of this whole thing was. To free me.

“But you never gave me more. You just kept taking and taking and expecting everything. You left me on the side of the road in a Halloween costume, crying because you broke my heart, and you drove off because you didn’t want to get a fucking parking ticket.”

“That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” Richard rolls his eyes at me, a drunken scoff leaving his lips. “Jesus, Abbie. Grow up. What did you want, a polite conversation in your apartment?”

“Yes, you jackass!” I yell, waving my arms. “Yes! That’s what normal people expect! That’s what normal people do when they date for four years and end things suddenly!”

“God, so fucking dramatic. You were always doing shit for attention, trying to get me to fucking care about you.” There’s an audible gasp from the small crowd that has started to form, and goddammit, now there’s a crowd to watch me shatter.

“There it is, Richard. You never cared. You never cared and you used me because I was convenient and I loved you. So yeah, I wanted to get back at you.” My eyes move up him, and venom enters my veins, some small part of the femme fatale I envisioned I’d be on this night. “So yeah. I started dating your boss. And I stopped the delivery of the shampoo to stop your stupid hair from falling out. And I changed the orders at the coffee shop and your lunch spot, because you were too dumb to understand that wasn’t my job anymore. Looks like the full-sugar, full-fat diet is really doing well for you. Your suit looks just a bit . . . ill-fitting, doesn’t it? Not very becoming, Richard. Oh, and did you ever stop getting those calls for lost keys? Did the glitter ever come out of the carpet in your stupid, ugly mom car? I guess you shouldn’t have underestimated the low-class department store makeup artist, now should you have?”

My final hand dealt, I let Richard stand there with his mouth open like a fish and turn to Damien. The man who I’ve been deceiving for two months but who, somehow, I fell head over heels for.

Fuck.

Isn’t that just the best karma?

“I’m sorry, Damien. I really didn’t intend for . . . any of this. I didn’t think things with us would go anywhere. I thought it would be a good fuck you that the world dropped into my lap. I was drunk with my friends and heartbroken and it sounded like a good idea. That if I could come to this party and show Richard what he missed then . . . I don’t know. It would make us even. It would make me feel like I won.” I look around the room at the faces that are looking at us. “But things . . . changed. You know that, Damien.” Damien looks around the room too, and god, this is the worst-case scenario.

What did I think was going to happen, though?

He opens his mouth to speak, probably to tell me to fuck off, that I’m a bitch, that I used him—all things I deserve—but he’s cut off by Richard, who would probably cut off his own mother if he thought he could get in the last word.

“You can have her, man. Sloppy seconds,” Richard says, and he sways a bit.

With his words, something changes in the air.

A sharp coldness creeps in, fog on the floorboards that only I can see, it seems.

“Excuse me?” Damien asks, turning toward my ex, his current employee. His shoulders are tight and firm.

Angry.

“I said you can have my sloppy seconds, boss man. Just know, she’s a real bore in the sack. Trainable, but boring.” His eyes move slowly to me and back. Acid churns in my stomach, and I have to fight the urge to vomit at his feet. “But I bet you already know that,” he says.

And then the unthinkable happens.

Damien cocks his arm back and, with his unencumbered, fully sober strength, hits Richard square in the jaw.