The hand, hanging loosely at her side, slowly cramped into a fist; by the time the boy's next belt of laughter escaped his lips she was welding a weapon of bone, muscle, and skin. The diamonds in the ostentatious ring encircling her ring finger on her left hand caught the fading light momentarily before burying themselves in the boy's right cheek. His head whipped back as he stumbled several feet. A look of utter bewilderment poured from his now-moist eyes; searching for reason for the assault.

The black fire spewing from her own eyes was enough to silence any words riding on the tip of his tongue. He winced as she yanked off the three-carat ring and threw it at his chest. The laughter that was so prevalent moments ago was replaced with deafening silence.

"How dare you!" she seethed. "How could you make a mockery of me behind my back?"

"Mockery? It was all in good fun, babe," he stammered over his words.

"Parading my most intimately embarrassing moment in front of your pals is not fun." Here eyes brimmed over with tears. "I was your fiancee. Does that mean nothing to you?"

"Yes, and as my fiancee I thought you'd be fine with a little joking around with Brian and Dave."

"What in your wildest dreams made you believe that? I told you those things in secret -- not everything is public knowledge -- and this is how you treat me?" Her hands came up stiffly to the sides of her face briefly before throwing them wide again. "I can not even fathom what possessed you, Kyle. It's this kind of immaturity -- this kind of childishness that my family warned me about. I can see they were right."

"Babe, it's not that bad. We can work things out. I can talk to them again. They won't talk to anyone," he tried soothing her, taking a step closer.

She brought a hand up to stop him. "No, Kyle. Don't even bother. I can't even look at you right now." She turned around in frustrated circle. "Just leave me alone!"




to be continued...