The Seven Year Slip

by Ashley Poston

Then she leaned closer, and her mischief turned into a smile that shone in her glittery brown eyes, and she told me a secret.

My aunt used to say, if you don’t fit in, fool everyone until you do.

“Watch out!” Drew cried. Fiona gasped. Too late. I collided with a server behind me.

The hand shook my shoulder again, the touch soft yet firm. Then a voice, gentle and rumbly, said, “Hey, hey, friend, wake up.” Two things occurred to me then: One, my aunt was very much dead. And two, there was a man in her apartment.

She only ever had two rules in this apartment—one, always take your shoes off by the door. And two: never fall in love. Because anyone you met here, anyone the apartment let you find, could never stay. No one in this apartment ever stayed. No one ever would.

‘Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.’ ”

He picked up his knife again and began to gut a bell pepper. “Whatever you say, Lemon.” I shot him a glare. “It’s Clementine.” “Clllllllemontine.”

“I suddenly hate you.” He mock gasped, dropping his knife, and slammed his hands against his chest. “Lemon, already? At least wait until you taste my food first!”

“French fries, Lemon. They were French fries.” I stared at him. “Your life changed because of some French fries?”

He couldn’t remember me, because if he did…wouldn’t he have tried to find me? And I wasn’t sure I wanted to know that answer.

“No, sorry,” I replied, and Drew gave me a hesitant look. “That’s just my face.” “Ah.”

“It was good to see you again, Lemon,” before he slipped out of the conference room, and I was left, mouth open, staring after him.

“It was good to see you again, Lemon,” Iwan—James, damn it, he was a potential author—had said. Which meant he remembered me.

I don’t know why you changed. I don’t know how. And, quieter, I don’t know you at all.