(3rd place in my group, 2nd round NYC 250-word fiction challenge, March 2023)
Waiting for the water to boil.
She likes mint leaves mangled, steeped five minutes, three drops of honey, a squeeze of lime. She calls it her “hot mojito.”
I drop a regular King Cole bag in my mug. I was never a tea person before the pandemic, but now I crave tea’s soothing warmth, the bland milky comfort of it.
The afternoon sun outlines her profile, the curve of her throat. She stares at her laptop, lost in sentence creation, searching for the right words to draw out the awkward laugh, the tears. I put the tea in its place, on the coaster just northeast of her mousepad.
Inspiration cracks through, and she types soft staccatos. Then she lifts the mug, blows across it, lips like a kiss. My stomach twists. “Heavenly. Thank you, Helen.”
Six months of torture. Would it be worse to never see her? I have wrestled with this.
“The book is finished. So I won’t need you anymore.”
When she isn’t writing, she doesn’t need a tea maker or assistant. I blink. My throat closes.
Her warm hand pulls me around so I am draped over her shoulder. She breathes mint and points at the screen.
“Read the dedication,” she says and as I do, she pulls my arms tight around her and rests her head on my shoulder.
“To she who should know better than to get involved with a writer,” it says.
“She does know better,” I murmur, hiding my joy in her neck.
