“You have to move out,” she tells him, pink nails kneading Hello Kitty bedspread. “I don’t want you touching all my clothes. Or seeing me change.” Her eyes are hard now, an eleven-year-old’s glitter-dusted eyes, they told him this would happen. “What if I want to have a sleepover? Or if, I don’t know, a boy came over?”
If a boy came over he’d lose his trachea, he wants to say.
“Sorry.”
She wouldn’t believe his snarls, so he lumbers out of the 28 by 48, slithers out the window. Static of her stuffed animals still crackling in his fur.
This is what flash fiction’s all about – it’s short, pithy, and packs an emotional punch.
“An eleven-year-old’s glitter-dusted eyes, they told him this would happen.”
Gorgeous line, gorgeous work.
It’s all true: this really hits it at the end.