Batteries Included

Story Sent in by Lori:

For my second date with Angelo, we took a drive to a nearby beach. It was the middle of autumn and the weather had been solidly cold for a month and a half. We had both bundled up for the occasion.

The wind blew fiercely that day, and the waves were high. No one else was on the beach, and I looked forward to strolling up and down, despite the cold. There was an old stone wall there that stretched from the parking lot all the way down to the water. It was about waist-high.

Angelo jumped onto it and balanced a good way before a gust made him lose his balance and he jumped off. I climbed onto it myself, and held my balance longer than he did.

I leaped down and stuck my tongue out at him, and he pushed past me and hopped back up onto it. He bent this way and that, but he held his own against the wind for a couple of minutes before he tried to do some sort of dance and then lost his balance and jumped down.

I climbed back up, walked all the way down to the water, then returned to where he waited for me. Having kept my balance longer than he did, I gave him a teasing smile.

He shoved me off the wall. I fell hard, onto my left arm.

I screamed and yelled, "What the hell was that for, you psychopath?"

He trembled, said, "Oh, shit!" and ran back up the beach, toward the parking lot, and didn't come back.

My arm was in a lot of pain, but it didn't turn out to be broken. I found that out by going to a local emergency room. When they asked me how it had happened, I told them that I was shoved and made a police report. As a result, he was charged with battery. I don't want to go into further details, but suffice it to say, I didn't go out with him again.