By Tony Press
“I’m not ready. We’re not ready.”
They said it as they held hands and walked the creek trail. They said it after returning to the café on Main Street where they both worked. They were seventeen. They had sex every Saturday night, the only night her parents worked late. She moved three hundred miles to a home for girls like her. She wrote unknown on the “father” line and then they took the baby away. She never saw it again but it was a girl.
After another year she never saw him again. After two years he never thought of her.
How emotive. I like the vividness of the details, albeit the brevity of the piece.
Kudos.
Such an emotional piece! Well done, heart wrenching and real.
Fantastic emotion in few words Tony. So much left unsaid between the sentences. She never saw IT again but IT was a girl. Great word choice. IT.
Extremely well-written piece, Tony Press. I wouldn’t have thought so much could be conveyed so completely in so few words — but here it is. Congratulations.
Tony, this is as engrossing as it is gritty and dystopian. A fairy tale for our times.
So much emotion in just a few words. Beautiful!