"So, you punched him?" Penelope and I were sitting at the coffee shop, meeting with our friend Torie Belle, who was staring at me like my hair had caught on fire. "Like, with an actual fist, punched him?"

"Full-on, fist-to-the-face, knocked-out-a-freaking-tooth, broke-his-smug-nose, punched him," Penelope described, beaming with pride.

"Gawd," Torie said, slowly raising her coffee cup to her lips. "He must have pissed you off something fierce, girl."

"Believe me. It wasn't worth it," I grumbled, shaking my head.

"What do you mean 'it wasn't worth it?' That man had it coming," Penelope said. "From everything you've said about him, he deserved way more than a punch to the face."

"Yeah," Torie agreed. "I'm a pacifist, but even I think it sounds like you punched him for the good of womankind. What a creep."

"Thanks, you two, but even if I get a major high-five for punching a chauvinist in the face from women everywhere, that doesn't help me pay the bills or my student loans," I told them both drily. "Who's going to want to hire someone who got fired for punching out a coworker?"

The reality of the situation was- I was completely screwed. Sure, I had some money in savings, but after that ran out, I was done. I was on the street holding a sign and buying gas station burritos with other people's left-over change. Like Piss-Cup-Mike, which was a legitimate, if not the most ideal, back-up plan.

Everyone avoided Piss-Cup-Mike's Street Corner unless they were sure they had change to give him. He was a lot like that troll in that fairytale with the Billy Goats Gruff and the bridge. Your change paid the toll, and he left you alone, otherwise... they didn't call him Piss-Cup-Mike for nothing.

I always made sure I had at least a dollar to give him any time I saw him. I was a big softie for Piss-Cup-Mike ever since he chased away a guy who'd been harassing me one Saturday night, following me back from the bar I'd been at with Penelope and Torie. He was catcalling, cajoling, wanting my number even though I had told him to "get lost" countless times. I dropped change in Piss-Cup-Mike's hand (knowing what would happen otherwise), and hurried by, but the asshole who'd been stalking me hit his hand away, calling Piss-Cup-Mike every bad name in the book. And Piss-Cup-Mike lived up to his name, throwing his piss in my harasser's face and chasing him for two blocks before returning to, once again, take up residence at his street corner.

And from that day on, I held a certain fondness for my unlikely savior.

Deep down, I knew Piss-Cup-Mike didn't give a damn about the stranger harassing me and he was just mad about not receiving his due change, but I like to think of him as my personal hero, sans cape, in ripped clothes and grizzled facial hair.

I mumbled something about gas station burritos and fumbled with my coffee cup. Torie and Penelope looked concerned, but I kept my mouth shut. I was not going to tell them what had been going on in my head. They would not approve.

"I gotta admit, punching anyone- even a chauvinist- isn't like you," Torie shook her head and eyed me. "Is everything alright?'

Penelope sat up and looked at me. "Hey," she said. "This doesn't have anything to do with that what we talked about, does it? You know, you getting angrier more easily lately? Have you given my therapist a call?"

"What do you mean?" Torie said, turning to look at me sharply, squinting her eyes. "You got an anger management problem, Vin?"

"No!" I denied it vehemently. "Of course not, when have I ever had an anger problem?"

"I'd say now if you're punching people at work ad getting fired," Torie countered.

"What, this?" I scoffed. "This was a fluke. It was one of those freak incidents that happen once in a lifetime. And I got mine out of the way in my twenties. Y'all are the ones who should be on the look-out. Your freak incidents haven't happened yet."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Don't be concerned for us," Torie cocked a brow. "We're still gainfully employed, freak incident or not."

"Ugh," I groaned. I couldn't deny it. "Y'all, I'm definitely in a pickle," I shook my head and thumped it against the table. Torie patted my back sympathetically and Penelope made a sad face, looking thoughtful.

"You know what this calls for?" Torie said, looking at both Penelope and me slyly.

"Oh no," Penelope whispered, leaning forward seriously. "Are you serious? Here? At the coffee shop? Really, Torie?"

"Honestly, Torie," I said. "It's really, not necessary-"

"Time for a reading!" Torie whipped out her deck of Tarot cards triumphantly. "I never go anywhere without them." She was smiling so big as she moved our coffee cups and laid the dark purple material across the table.

Penelope suppressed a groan, but I grinned. I loved Torie's witchy side. She admitted that she'd always wanted to be a witch since she was a little bitty thing- making potions with mud and leaves and sticks in her backyard. "My mama thought I was possessed by a devil," Torie had said, laughing. "A hardcore born-and-bred Christian, she couldn't understand my need for something different. I never fit in at Sunday school. I was always a freak." I could absolutely understand what Torie had meant- but not for the reasons she would have figured. She had no idea how much I understood.

"This is the best opportunity for a reading!" Torie said with cheery enthusiasm. "When major life events happen, some extra insight is the best thing. And I am telling you, my intuition has gotten a hundred times more accurate."

"More accurate than when you told me I would meet my true love on the corner of Maple and 3rd Street on the 5th day in October and it was Old Man Sullivan down the street?" Penelope told her.

"Yeah... That was a minor fluke. Definitely more accurate than that," Torie said sheepishly. "Okay, enough about the past- let's see what the cards have to say about you, Vinnie." Torie shuffled the deck, her eyes closed. She spread the cards across the purple cloth and took a breath. She picked three cards and turned them over, blinking.

"So," she began slowly, pointing a a disastrous looking card, an exploding tower and people falling to their doom. "This one means that you've had a major upheaval, something that has turned your world completely upside down."

Penelope rolled her eyes. "Well, she was just fired, so that's not exactly news."

Torie ignored Penelope and continued. "But this card, this one suggests something bigger, something important is headed your way. Someone is coming for you, someone important, bearing a gift."

"What kind of gift?" I asked. I had to admit, this reading was getting interesting.

"I can't say for sure," she said uncertainly. "But it seems like it's connected to the previous card. It's got something to do with the major upheaval. It's going to be a blessing or.... a curse..." Torie furrowed her brow and looked serious. I shifted uneasily in my chair. Penelope shook her head at me. She was sending me silent messages to ignore the reading, but there was something to this one. Torie seemed to be in a zone.

The last card depicted a man wandering amid a group of trees. "And this one... something about the woods...? A man in the woods? But," she paused. "It's like a warning. Beware."

"Beware the man in the woods?" Penelope looked at Torie like she was crazy.

"I know how it sounds," Torie said defensively. "But I feel it. It's the woods and this man..."

"Torie," Penelope interrupted. "Look around. There's no woods. Hell, there's not even a man."

"I know that!" Torie was indignant. "Well... Maybe it's metaphorical." She studied the cards, squinting her eyes hard at the pictures.

My skin shivered. Penelope was always the skeptic, but growing up the way I did, the mother I had... I couldn't just brush this off like some crazy Tarot rant on Torie's part.

"I guess I should have used the crystal ball," she mused aloud.

"You brought that with you?" Penelope demanded. "What else do you have in that bag?"

We were interrupted by the sound of the bell above the coffee shop door ringing loudly, and the door being flung open wide with grand flourish.

"I'm here!" Matt sang dramatically, his arms wide, lifted toward the heavens. "So," he plopped in the open chair between Torie and Penelope. "What'd I miss? It sounded serious on the phone."

"Vinnie punched a psychopathic chauvinist in the face," Torie announced.

"Oh, you go girl! That's my badass bitch bringing justice to vaginas around the world! I am woman, hear me roarrrrr," he drew out the 'r' and made a claw with his hand.

"But then she got fired for it and lost out on her big promotion," Penelope added.

"Oh, yikes. What the hell? Why are we meeting at the coffee shop? It sounds like we should be meeting at the bar. Hell, I can always go for some tequila; this situation calls for major day-drinking, ladies."

Penelope and I groaned and Torie rolled her eyes.

"Been there, done that, and, apparently, we weren't invited," Torie informed him tartly. Matt gasped.

"Girl, next time you get fired from work and punch a dick, you call ALL your friends, got it?"

I gave him a thumbs-up without lifting my head.

He patted my hair and shook his head. "Poor baby, it looks like you had a miserable time, so I forgive you," he said.

"It looks like they had way too good a time to me," Torie disagreed.

"Without us? I doubt it. Now," Matt said seriously, settling in his seat and placing his palms on the table. "I need coffee and I need some tea, babies. Spill it! Tell me everything."