THE THING YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO KEEP

Mama handed you the thing, gripping your soft skin between your knuckles. You were fresh, unaware that peaches tasted best bruised and halfway rotten. You didn't know about summer yet. Your fingers pried beneath her peach-pink nails, where the polish had worn. She smelled like lavender, but older. "Promise this will be different from everything you've lost," she said. But it won’t be. It’ll slip away, like the gummy eraser you used to draw fish with feet. You'll lose it between the bus stop and your locker, distracted by something stupid, just before the bell rings. Just before the crying.

Lara Chamoun is a high school student from Toronto, Canada. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Toronto's Young Voices Magazine, The Diamond Gazette, The WEIGHT Journal and On the Seawall. She was a 2024 Adroit Summer Mentorship mentee in fiction and reads for Eucalyptus Lit.