She was a fuckup.  Grade A – bonafide.  She tore through boyfriends, broken a little further after each one.  Jobs went well until they didn’t.  The final check always arrived with walking papers.  She fought hard, cried hard, the failures built up like bricks, slowly constructing the catacomb which she called home.

People blamed it on the men she dated.  They told her to pick better.  She scrambled, closed one eye, made sure she was choosing the right ones, but even the good ones threw in the towel.  Life was a series of unfortunate events.  It was a row of chipped dominoes on a shaky table.  Even when things were good, she was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Waiting for the comfortable tremor of chaos.

When the second shoe did drop, and the whole foot disappeared into a puddle, she covered her face and balled.  She wept, sometimes for days at a time.  When she ran out of tears, she sat and pouted without removing her crying face.  Her arms squeezed across her chest, but she could no longer trust her own embrace.  Maybe she thought she didn’t deserve it.  She’d broken too many hearts, told so many lies that they became tangled with reality.  She’d lost people and been lost, exiled, shoved out, castaway.  That was her life.

After a long time being a fuckup, there was a point of submission.  Life turned into a cloudy room with no Exit signs.  She lived like that, aimed at hard times, not trying to shift the course.  Bad days rolled over her until she was flat and purple.  “Why me?” she’d scream.  She’d ask this question to police officers who stopped her for speeding.  She asked old friends and old bosses the same question.  They all looked at her like a wounded animal, with sympathy in their eyes.  They felt sorry for her, but they weren’t willing to nudge her into a better orbit.  She said it herself, she was the kiss of death, the bruise on the apple, or better yet, the worm.  Tragedy followed her.  She’d made it that way, shortened the leash even.  Desperation turned pale and bitter.  You could smell it on her.  There was traffic on the freeway to spite her.  Flat tires, paper cuts – any misfortune was a great universal conspiracy.  She believed this.  At night she imagined a table of gods planning her miserable fate, adjusting her path to run through bad lands, over broken bridges, into swamps.  She hated them for it.  She hated people just the same.  Before she got to know them, she hated them – for what they would do.

When collateral damage would wound bystanders, she was unapologetic.  Forgiveness wasn’t a thing she participated in.  The world never forgave her and because of that, she had no interest in forgiving the world. 

It all came to a head on a bus stop bench.  The world was still heavy on her case.  Her eyes were red, nose runny.  An old woman with long ears and a thin moustache struck up a conversation.  Within seconds, the girl was spilling her poison.  She was emotional, nasty, beaten.  She was angry with this and more-so with that.  No one would forgive her.  She was living a tormented existence.  If only she could begin again, a fresh start.

The old woman looked at the girl over her reading glasses.  She said one sentence that, if taken seriously, would change the trajectory of this girl’s life forever.  She said, “Second chances should be earned.”  She stood up, smiled slightly, and stepped onto the bus.