Photo by Logan Voss on Unsplash
The morning was pleasant, so we kept walking, forgetting how quickly conditions change. By the time we turned around, we’d run out of shade—no reprieve anywhere. Wasn’t long before you said what you said, which later you’d say I shouldn’t hold against you because you hadn’t been yourself—the heat, the heat. After, I stepped in gum—snot green, a small meanness that stuck to me. And to every slab of sunbaked sidewalk I dragged it across, you trailing behind with a stick, pleading with me to let you scrape the mess off. As if it were that easy.
Michelle Ross’s latest book is Don’t Take This the Wrong Way, which she cowrote with Kim Magowan. Ross is the author of three other story collections. Her work is included in Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and Flash Fiction America.
