The Seven Year Slip

by Ashley Poston

Felt over a new tattoo I’d never seen before. My eyebrows furrowed. “When did you get this?” He looked down at the tattoo, and then sheepishly back at me. “About seven years ago. It’s a bit faded now—” “It’s a lemon flower.” “Yes,” he replied, looking up into my eyes, searching them. He’d gotten a lemon flower tattooed over his heart. “What do you tell people, when they ask about it?” His shyness melted into a smile, warm and gooey like chocolate. “I tell them about a girl I fell in love with at the right place but the wrong time.” A knot lodged in my throat. “And what are you going to tell them now?” “That we finally got the timing right.” “A matter of time,” I whispered. “A matter of timing,” he proposed,

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