I'll Stop the World

by Lauren Thoman

He drones on, building up to the ultimate announcement of who’s won this year’s citizenship award, this giant scholarship the county gives out every year, always to the same type of kid: honor roll, student council, lots of extracurriculars, community service, blah blah blah. The type of kid who doesn’t really need a leg up, because they’ve already got so many, but they keep sprouting more anyway, like some sort of overachieving mutant spider.

But now, Rose wanted to fight. She wanted to tell the woman how wrong she was about Noah, how smart and kind and hardworking he was, how special he was. She wanted the woman to know she was small, and that she would always be small because her mind was small, but that Noah would be big because his heart was big.

“Being drunk doesn’t change how you feel about someone. It just gives you permission to say it out loud.”