Should I reach out and take her hand? Will she shake it off? Can I pretend we just touched accidentally? That would be tough. Do I look at her when I take hold or do I pretend like it’s nothing? Tight squeeze or loose?
What if she holds mine back?
Richard Baigent has always wanted to write and has just started.
After two days, she was infatuated with the bright smile that followed her classmate’s corny jokes.
He conversed with her sister while she watched from afar. She was hit by the realization that he couldn’t tell her apart from her twin.
The next day he moved on to someone else.
Ann Kennedy is a high school student in Chicago, IL.
He couldn’t believe his luck when their math teacher assigned her a seat beside him.
Months into the semester, he still hasn’t braved one word.
One day, his phone dies. He taps her shoulder, gestures to use her phone as a calculator.
She misunderstands. She writes her number.
He melts.
J.R. Night is a recent graduate from the University of Maryland. He likes to write, draw, and exercise, all of which leave him breathless and annoyed.
After weeks of making eyes from the other side of Fiction, he plucked up the courage.
His scrawled note said, “Coffee?” Her reply said “Convince me.” She’d read the novels: true love needs a little jeopardy.
But he missed her punctuating smile. He snatched up his satchel and marched away.
Tamsin also believes too much of what she reads in novels.
“You know that… zing you feel when you get a question right?” David asked me after quizbowl practice.
“Mmhmm.” I answered distractedly, wrangling with my bookbag. He extracted the pencil from my teeth. I looked up.
“Beth,” he said, pencil twirling in his hands, “you give me that zing, too.”
Miriam Teague is a history student who lives in Dayton, Ohio.
She sought out the blue dot, his blue dot, which was sometimes accompanied by the word “mobile.”
She developed a nervous tic, always reaching for her phone.
Perhaps he looked for the reassurance of her blue dot, too. But probably not.
She knew this, and she tried not to care.
Sarah Vernetti is a freelance writer from Las Vegas, Nevada.
Third day. Sam sat in the cafe twirling his coffee mug. Just quick glances, and neck scratching.
No more pretending to check for messages when she looked up.
Sam rose, pulse racing.
She craned her neck suddenly. She shook her head.
Deflated, Sam resumed his seated position. “Well, never mind.”
Stephen Crowley has written fiction for Flash Fiction Friday, a short fiction magazine, and currently writes short tales for his collections. His fiction writing blog is stephen-crowley.blogspot.co.uk.
Fabio stands by the punch bowl, the loud bass pounding in his ears. Lillian is on the other side of the room laughing loudly at Sebastian’s jokes. His heart twists with sadness. She will never notice him.
A silent tear slips down his cheek into the punch. Now it’s salty.
Jessica Larsen has been teaching Language Arts to middle school students for eight years. She met her husband while waiting in line at the post office. In her spare time, she loves to write stories, run, and go to movies by herself.
We were at some overpriced, hipsterish coffee “boutique.” Jared got a mug of frothy stuff and stuck his face right in there, giving himself a mustache.
“Lookin’ good!” I joked, so he kept the “mustache” going all evening. Ironically, he said.
Wait. That doesn’t mean he likes me, does it?
This story was based on the TypeTrigger prompt “froth.”
Bill never expected to find love.
He never expected Susan at the coffee shop to greet him warmly, smile eagerly, and wink at him while she made his latte grande.
Bill never expected it, so he ignored her, took his latte, said goodbye, and went on with his lonely life.
Chris Fries is a new writer, working to hone his writing chops. He is an Engineer by vocation, a guitarist by avocation, and a writer by compulsion. His writing blog is StratPlayerCJF.blogspot.com.