Late by Fergus Reid
It was already ten minutes past. I glanced at the rain bouncing off my best shoes then returned to staring at the door. It was as if something inside me didn’t know that she had to arrive from the outside. Evolution hadn’t even caught up with the invention of doors.
I made a fist around the receipt. I’d paid a fortune to have this in time for Tom’s thirteenth but she needed a long lie. Her business would survive but I could still remember my own thirteenth.
Half past.
“I’m sorry,” she said, struggling with her keys.
“For God’s sake,” I said, “It’s my son’s thirteenth. Is it so hard to think of somebody but yourself?”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
She opened the door and rushed inside. I dashed to her desk just in time to see her turn John’s photo face down.
Fergus finished his PhD in maths before deciding to live the wild life and become a software engineer. He has been writing since childhood and has yet to apologise for it.
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