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Snapshots


by Tiffany R. White


Daniela said, “I'm winging it!” I looked over that exclamation point fifteen times and not once did it remain an exclamation point. It became a period, an ellipses and a question mark each time I looked. It was California the first time she said it. Five years later, it's Phoenix.

“Do you have a job? Are you going back to school,” I asked, you know, because I'm hip like that.

“Sammie, please,” she said, like that would make the beating in my chest idle. I sighed. She matched it with her own and I saw bright moon eyes made of Amber rolling towards the sky. She was 500 miles away but I saw them. I saw them like we were children, time slipping away like oil through a funnel. I failed to mold her because I wasted, spewing vodka tinged words when we were teens and I was sorry.

“Sammie?”

 I couldn't answer. What could I say that she doesn't know?

 I felt a burn in my stomach that lurched upward toward my heart, where it settled like a newly melded anchor.  Buses belched just outside my window, a bell rung. I laughed, a hearty laugh filled with sorrow. She laughed too.

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