"Especially a catch like my boyfriend. You'd be crazy not to throw yourself at him, right?"
I took a deep breath. "I told you. I wouldn't look twice at your boyfriend."
"Wouldn't look twice?" The girl sneered, hands on her hips. "Then why'd you jinx him? You're getting on your knees and apologizing to him. Right now."
"On my knees?"
I thought I'd misheard her.
"That's right. On your knees." The girl folded her arms across her chest, chin tilted high.
"You cursed my boyfriend and said he'd fail. Do you have any idea how long he's been preparing for this position? A vicious woman like you needs to be taught a lesson before she learns to keep her mouth shut."
I was stunned.
Forty-some years on this earth, over twenty of them working in the public sector, and I had never encountered anyone this unreasonable.
"You sure about that?" I asked.
"What's the matter? Scared now?" The girl sneered and turned to the other passengers. "Everyone, tell me I'm wrong. She cursed someone's exam results. Doesn't she owe him an apology?"
"An apology, sure, but making someone kneel is a bit much," someone murmured.
"Yeah, the kneeling part is going too far."
The girl's expression shifted instantly, her voice cracking with a teary quiver:
"You don't know what my boyfriend sacrificed for this! He studied until two in the morning every single night. He lost twenty pounds. And she thinks she can destroy all of that with one sentence?"
The boy lowered his head on cue, looking dejected.
The mood in the car shifted again.
"Well, that does sound rough."
"The civil service exam is brutal these days. Cursing someone like that really is rotten."
"Making her kneel is a stretch, but she should at least apologize."
Listening to all of this, my chest felt like it had a stone lodged in it.
"I'm not apologizing." My voice came out cold. "And I'm certainly not kneeling."
The girl's eyes went wide. She whipped out her phone and aimed it straight at my face. "Come on, everyone, get a good look at this woman! Dressed like that to seduce someone else's boyfriend, and when he wouldn't bite, she cursed his exam. Now she won't even kneel and apologize!"
She advanced step by step, phone raised. "I'm recording this. Let's make you famous!"
Instinctively, I lifted my hand to shield my face.
That was when the train attendant pushed through the crowd.
"What's going on here?"
The girl switched masks in an instant, pointing at me with a wounded, pitiful expression:
"My boyfriend and I just wanted to sit together. We asked her to swap seats, and she refused. Fine, whatever. But then she cursed my boyfriend and said he'd fail the civil service exam! His test is tomorrow!"
She even dabbed at her eyes when she finished. Whether the tears were real was anyone's guess.
The attendant frowned and turned to me. "Ma'am, is that what happened?"
I took a deep breath, pulled my ticket from my bag, and handed it over.
"See for yourself whether I was the one who switched."
The attendant took the ticket, glanced at the seat number, then looked at where I was actually sitting. She paused.
"My assigned seat is over there." I pointed to the seat the girl had taken. "They grabbed it from me."
"I did not!" the girl shrieked immediately. "She got up on her own!"
"Your boyfriend pulled me out of my seat." My voice was perfectly even. "Check the security cameras."
The attendant looked at me, then at the couple. Two seconds of silence. Then she turned to me:
"Ms. Finch, would you like me to contact the transit police?"
The color drained from the girl's face before the words had fully left the attendant's mouth.
"No, don't call the police!" Her voice went soft in an instant, eyes rimming red. "We were wrong, we were totally wrong! My boyfriend has his exam tomorrow. He can't have something like this on his record!"
The boy panicked too, scrambling to his feet. "We're sorry, we're so sorry. It was our fault. My girlfriend has a temper. Please, ma'am, be the bigger person here."
