"That that is just the person that you are."

There are moments, usually quiet moments in the dead of night, when the world shifts. I found myself relaxed, calm, anxious for my phone to buzz with the continuation of the nightly conversation that I look so forward to.

I sat and heard her start to tell me a story. I wasn't all there, my mind drifting off to Chicago while maintaining some semblance of concentration.

What she said broke my reverie and brought me swiftly back to my body, sitting on the steps staring across the darkened street.

No, what?

And there it was.

The reasoning, his version of the truth, conveyed to me via her. The nerve of this slimy coward. To later tell a mutual friend that it wasn't his fight to fight, yet to have never even told me about it.

It.

Allegedly.

Apparently, it - that alleged indiscretion - happened on the fourth of July. Happened when I, the sober driver, was saying goodbye. Well here's a sweet goodbye for you...

It was an anger I have not felt in some time. My jaw clenched, my eyes narrowed, I was, in that moment, comprised solely of steel and tingling fingertips.

Untruths!

Annoyance filled my steel-skeleton, and I drove home in a concentrated rage. I grabbed my phone and sent a message - abrupt, rude, sharply displaying my acute disapproval.

I did not expect a response, but when I saw it, my anger flared past steel. I am molten iron now, white hot.

I still am. It's been some hours now, edging toward twenty four, yet I cannot break the script from my mind.

"...everyone conceded that that is just the person that you are."

What am I?

I have lists of occasions I could reference, all to refute this claim that "that that is just the person that" I am.

But they fall far short of the damage I wish to inflict.

Self-control serves me well, but in all honesty, I am so hurt by this assertion, this accusation, the untruth of it all, that if we come face to face, I won't hesitate to show him just what kind of person I am.