Flash Fiction: Preparing to Stay In
Ashley Bourne
Paper: done. Dog: walked. Laundry: folded. Dinner: skip it. Flask: in purse, hidden.
You slip on your faux-leather sandals, the ones from the sales rack at Forever 21: $12.99. And the synthetic rayon bodycon dress, which hugs your narrow hips. You’re preparing to go out.
Finally. The week has dragged out to feel like one long, arduous Monday. An unremitting and stagnant cycle of almost-skipped too-goddamn-early classes, shuffling past fatigued and unbathed bodies, and hastily unwrapping granola bars inbetween. You earned this, you tell yourself.
Yet, as your phone creeps towards 36% and the group chat–filled with acquaintances from Psych-101 or maybe PreCalc– inquire of your whereabouts, you take pause. Looking up you catch eyes with your small white dog with the one brown ear, head tilted.
What are you doing? Where are you going? Who are these people?
You don’t know. You don’t know. You don’t know.
Your phone with the cracked corner– because you made the drunken, executive decision to forego a case and purchase another vodka tonic instead– muffles another notification against your bedspread:
How are you spending your Friday night in? –Steph. SENT 9:09PM.
You cease making adjustments on your cheap shoes that always wind up chafing your Achilles after an hour. And in an hour you’ll want to be here: on a date with yourself, sipping the semi-chilled Pinot Gris in the fridge, and pointlessly rewatching the same show you always rewatch on Friday nights. Who were you kidding?
No one really cares if you don’t go to the party anyway.
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