I have a bad habit of dating assholes. Yes, that's right, the word "asshole" actually passes my lips on occasion. I don't let anyone hear it, but I curse like a sailor in private.

So, yes, I have a bad habit of dating assholes. And I know I have a bad habit of dating assholes. One might say I intentionally seek out assholes. Fact is, I like assholes. I get to feel self-righteous, I get to live in the hopes that I can turn them into decent human beings, and I get to know exactly what they're going to do. They're predictable. Easy to deal with. I know, in the end, that an asshole is going to do what's best for his own inflated ego and anything else he can manage that's jerkish. It's nice, it's simple.

I don't date nice guys. Now, don't get me wrong: I'm sure that out there in the world there are all sorts of wonderful nice guys who fall in love with nice girls and who, given half a chance, would do all kinds of nice things and be positively wonderful. But my nice guys are… well, they're different. I've tried dating the kinds of nice guys that pursue me. It was an experience better left un-had, and it involved restraining orders.

Assholes get over me in seconds. They find some other not-that-innocent soul to drag through the mud and mistreat, they leave, and they don't look back.

Nice guys don't get over me. Nice guys can't believe that our perfect love of two whole weeks is over now and become convinced that I cannot have anyone else ever again and that they need to stalk me to make sure of that.

Assholes are predictable, and I knew that Hammer was no different, even though I wished right down to my heart that he was, if only for the sake of those rock-hard abs and that confident grin. I have to admit I didn't expect him to humiliate me quite as effectively as he did. Having my asshole boyfriend brag to the entire adoring world about our having sex was a whole new category of low. It wouldn't surprise me if at that moment the desire to be killed by some convenient shrapnel hadn't crossed my mind, though in all likeliness I was instead concentrating on the pit I wanted to dig right down through the carpet, wherein I could bury myself in shame and romantic misery and only come back out the day that creeps ceased to exist.

But no, no. New lows to reach and all. Because then, of course, came Billy. Dear, sweet Billy. Nice guy Billy. The guy I sort of wanted but knew I couldn't have – partly because of Hammer, and partly because of my track record with nice guys.

Hammer and Billy put some stunning new marks on my track record before finally getting me killed.

I almost wasn't surprised. If the current asshole in my life was a superhero, of course the current stalker nice-guy was a supervillain. Up the ante on one side, up it on the other. Duh.

I watched with a combination of numb horror and a pervading sense of dramatic irony. Part of me wanted to curl up in a ball and hide and scream until the men in white coats came to take me away, and part of me wanted to burst out laughing and keep giggling my fanny off until the men in white coats came to take me away.

It didn't hurt, the death part. I got the sense of impact, but I went hard into shock after that. I couldn't feel a thing. Could barely hear a thing. I think I said something ridiculous, something stupid, something misplaced, and then…

Well, at least I don't have to deal with assholes anymore, do I?