Payback

The world was going to end within the hour. Bobby could feel it in the cold wind as she left the house, shutting the door with a muffled thud, cutting out the sound of her mother’s radio. She thrust her fists into her pockets and took a deep breath before setting off down the driveway and out onto the street. 1

She’d met Pete a little over two months previous, something that’d set the entire motion in process. Back then she’d been a slut, everyone’s little whore and toy to tear and fuck. Had been for a long time. She’d given up on love, covered in scars to remind her of what it brought with it. She hated life, drowning in alcohol and sex. Things were looking good. She wanted to be an undercover gift giver, fucking men and passing on all manner of diseases. That was how much she despised life. 2

Like I say, she met Pete as a slut, fucked him and was already to move on to the next guy. He wasn’t having that. They became boyfriend and girlfriend. She grew to love him, pushing all of her previous hate out of the picture. 3

It’s funny the way things work, to be honest. A few weeks after their first meeting, Bobby was diagnosed with HPV, with advanced genital warts. Sure, it wasn’t the HIV she’d been planning for all that time back but it was still a shock. Pete had been a virgin before they’d met, not that he’d told her that until afterwards. She’d fucked a perfectly decent virgin and could have passed on the HPV to him, and who knows what else she might have lurking in her, undiagnosed. The truth struck home. 4

She stopped at the bridge that would lead her into town, leaning on the railings and pulling out her cell phone. The cars below zoomed past and she half smiled; the end was nigh, as they say. 5

She rang Pete. 6

‘I have HPV,’ she said with a soft, apologetic voice. ‘I’m sorry.’7

He didn’t reply. She ran a hand through her hair and turned the phone off; so this was what death felt like.8

The world had ended. She threw herself off the bridge, but in reality she was dead already. 9