Upside Down

by N.R. Walker

She had those lines above her top lip, like she’d spent a good portion of her sixty-something years scowling. It made her mouth look like a cat’s butthole.

I’d only ever made eye contact with him once and I’d almost died. Literally. He’d looked up once and caught me staring at his beautiful face, I’d stumbled up the narrow aisle, almost fell, took out some poor kid with my messenger bag, and landed in the lap of a nun who, for the record, probably could have done without my “fucking motherfucker” expletive as I fell. On the bright side, Headphones Guy wore noise-cancelling headphones and was oblivious, and I’d slid into a seat up the back with nothing more than a bruised ego and death-stares from the nun. The whole experience had been horrifying.

“You’ve met me. I open my mouth and all there is is explosive verbal diarrhoea. No one is safe.”

Remember, if he doesn’t like the real you, he’s not good enough.”

“I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” The air left my lungs, my world tilted, and I had to lean against the building wall. “Jesus, Jordan,” Merry said, alarmed. She grabbed my arm. “What’s wrong?” I handed her my phone. “He quoted Lewis Carroll,” I tried to say, but it was barely a squeaky breath.

My heart did that squeezing thing that made my brain unable to brain and my lungs unable to lung.

The eloquence.