We’d skip French, sit on your bed listening to Beatles’ albums, the soft hair of your forearm brushing mine, the cadences of your voice rocking me. That was before those tall, strawberry blonde twins showed up at our middle school. Before Sadie gave you her original vinyl copy of Help!

Kathryn Silver-Hajo is a Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and Best American Food Writing nominee. Her flash collection Wolfsong and YA novel Roots of the Banyan Tree were both published in 2023. More at kathrynsilverhajo.com.