This Close To Okay

by Leesa Cross-Smith

Emmett let pencil skirt hang out to dry in his brain momentarily, having absolutely no clue what those words meant put together like that. He was baffled and impressed by all the secret things women knew about the world.

“Well, I would’ve remembered you.” “Remembered what?” “Your face and hair and eyes. Your whole thing,” she said in between bites of food. She pointed a limp fry at him. “You’re striking.” He loved looking at her but refrained from saying it for fear of making her uncomfortable. Her listening face was pretty and consistently reassuring, like a familiar character from a pleasant, uneventful dream.

And even in the moments when he’d doubted the existence of God, he’d remember how God had made women taste. Proof alone.