Pinky Promise

A Story by Chanel Richardson

Not sure what to put here.

We are children again, barely passing four foot.

In your faded overly washed torn capris

And me, in that denim skirt I loved so much that had the light fragrance of my mother's perfume.

August 14th 1993, a rainy day, or so I recall.

You came outside after dinner, spaghetti, it was obvious by the stain in the middle of your shirt where the handkerchief had failed to reach.

I had just got done painting my nails, a teal blue maybe green and of course my left ring finger had snagged on the door as I was running out of the house.

Usually, we walk or play or run, we run til our hearts are constricted and nearly about the burst under the pressure of our sporadic breathing.

But something had changed, ever since the other day after school we went to my house for an afternoon snack and witnessed the first step of our soon to be broken homes.

The family friends, are now the so called secret lovers.

I know you’ll never look at your father the same again, and I with my mother.

I looked at you with my glistening eyes filled with sorrow and regret, the rain dampening my hair to make it fall upon my shoulders.

You grabbed my pinky with yours and whispered “We’ll never be like them. Promise me.” A faint whimper fell across my lips as I mumbled “I pinky promise.”

November 20th 2014, 11:38pm.

You’re draped across the cotton, sheets beneath us of what I believe is a motel 6. Wedding bands lost in the comforters along with my love and passion for the sanctity of marriage.

I sit at the edge of the bed reading the multiple messages from the night before.

“Where are you???”

“No call?”

“Whatever happened to thirty minutes?”

My head swells with regret.