It was the bone-chilling Seattle winter of 1994 when “Breakdown” by Mariah Carey played on Mary’s radio. Outside was a winter wonderland with five inches of snow pushed to either side of the steep road. I’d lived just three blocks away, so I tromped through the snow in boots and a stocking cap covering my ears. I stomped my feet before entering Mary’s two-story upper-middle-class house. We needed to finish our high school science project, and I needed to study her lips.

(© 2020 AC)

(Erica Orloff edited this short story. Anything posted on Amazon has been professionally edited.)

(Wattpad, Amazon Kindle.)