It is a beautiful, warm June night, so he decides to walk home from work rather than take a bus.
As he walks up the back porch steps, he hears a voice: “Kiss me, or I’ll scream.”
After his initial shock, he turns around to see her.
He hadn’t heard her walk up.
A hot mess
Black streaks marking her cheeks.
All their sweet nothings and dirty deeds
Dance with alcohol in her droopy eyes.
“Why?” he asks.
It has been long,
Twenty years since he was eighteen.
He knows though.
And she hangs her wicked smile lopsided.
He kisses her softly on the forehead.
He smiles.
“Thank you,” she says.
And dissolves.
To the warm, beautiful June night he says,
“I miss you.”
Written by Navya Hebbar
