Heartburn
My friend is picking meat from a bone when she says her marriage has become bland. Calling it a bone doesn’t paint a clear picture. Could be the leg of a deer? A horse? I ask if she wants the number for my therapist. My feelings are what they are, she says. They’re not going to change. Fat glistens her lips. I point out that her feelings did change. She used to love her husband. My friend wipes her mouth on her sleeve. She calls the waiter, asks for a dessert menu. After mousse, she stiffs me with the bill.
Michelle Ross is the author of three story collections: There’s So Much They Haven’t Told You, winner of the 2016 Moon City Short Fiction Award; Shapeshifting, winner of the 2020 Stillhouse Press Short Fiction Award (2021); and They Kept Running, winner of the 2021 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction (2022). Don’t Take This the Wrong Way, a story collection she co-wrote with Kim Magowan, is forthcoming from EastOver Press in March 2025. Her work is included in Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, the Wigleaf Top 50, and the Norton anthology, Flash Fiction America. It’s received special mention in the Pushcart Prize anthology. She is an Editor at 100 Word Story.
