Georgia used to love Tennis practice nights the most. As the instructor, she would finish the nights with a hard workout, and the girls would make their way to the team showers. Georgia would shower, using the members-only room, and pull on some cute pool clothes, and get ready to spend the evening with Brad in the elitist country club his parents owned.

How fortunate she was to be teaching his favorite sport. Not.

Tennis practice nights were now boring. She would skip the shower and wait for her mother to pick her up in the dingy soccer van, and her little baby brother would drool. Georgia would wait, and eventually her mother would say something that would truly mean “I-don’t-know-why-you-still-teach-tennis-at-this-assholes-country-club.”

The parking garage lights were dim as Georgia made her way up to the white Maserati. The car was beautiful, a brand-new model, meticulously crafted to the owner’s desires. Blue rims lining white wall tires, Illegally dark tinted windows, tan and sleek leather interior.

A beautiful car destined to be at the hands of someone who was a major whore.

As Georgia’s eyes laid sight on the pesky car, the memories began to flood her brain. Their first kiss had been at a stoplight, and it had been explosive: from the tongue that pressed into her mouth down to the car horns from behind them. From there, the memories got deeper. He had taken her clothes off for the first time in the backseat, telling her she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. She had answered the phone once in the passenger seat, only to hear her mother explain her cancer diagnosis. Her best friend had sat in the backseat and drunk-cried over her ex of 8 years (elementary school sweethearts). Georgia had first learned to drive in that beautiful car.

That beautiful but fucking-shitty car.

Standing in front of the car, Georgia felt absolutely defeated. The car was symbolic of who Brad was. Closed off, gorgeous, perfectly curated to be everything he wanted you to believe on the outside. The inside of the car was also beautiful, but slightly smelly, and full of warning signs. Like open condom wrappers under the seats.

Brad – or this car – was Georgia’s first real taste of freedom. Her first romance and her first late nights. At a solid 18 years of age, the car was everything she ever dreamed of.

Georgia could not wait to destroy it.

Holding on to the grip of the racket, Georgia looked at the solid-electric green tennis racket in her hands. It was beautiful – a gift from Brad himself. He had said she deserved more than Trusty Red – her rickety  broken (and then duct-taped) tennis racket her mother had purchased at goodwill.

He also told her that Trusty Red didn’t fit in with the aesthetics of the prestigious club.

BANG.

Georgia gripped the tennis racket hard as she shoved it into the shiny white hood of the Maserati. It left not only a dent, but a large, electric-green smudge.

“This is fun.”

Georgia went for it again, slamming the head of her tennis racket into the hood multiple times, before changing her stance. Using the grip and handle, she broke out both of his shiny front-headlights.

Brad would learn what being a whore meant.

Georgia dropped her backpack to the ground, pulling out the set of extra-keys he had given her. Starting at the driver side door, she immediately circled his car, the distinct scratch of keys on metal being oh-so-familiar. This felt good.

SCRATCH. SCRATCH.

She went at it again, smacking the doors with the tennis racket, banging on the windows, carving words like whore, man-ho, and cheater into the paint. She felt the tension in her heart, but with each new impression she left on the vehicle, her heart would start to relax again.

The tennis balls in her backpack were for also a good measure, and using her racket, she started beating them back and forth with the car, hitting each one that boomeranged in her direction. One eventually broke a window, which was not only a goal – but the headline of her night.

By the time she was done, she was dripping with sweat, and the car was an absolutely travesty. She sighed, pressing her hand against the hood, and smiling. Aiming into the broken window, she tossed her spare keys into the driver side, along with the tennis racket, and a small note.

I quit.