Bad Chemistry
by Jennifer Lai

I was dragged to a club the other night by a friend who wasn’t really my friend and I didn’t want to go but went anyway because she called me lame for wanting to stay home to binge on Breaking Bad and cherry walnut ice cream and I wanted to prove that I wasn’t lame then when we got to the club my not-friend ditched me and suddenly I found myself in the middle of a dance circle pumping my hands to the unce unce unce of the bass beat when a greasy-haired man struck up conversation using cheesy pick-up lines I normally wouldn’t fall for but did that time (because I had three shots of Patron so who wouldn’t) and after talking for a while I found him kind of cute and before I knew it I was at his place (which was actually a tiny room in the basement of a run-down house but whatever) smoking more weed than I’d ever smoked in my entire life feeling as badass as Walter White from season 5 (not season 1) and soon we were dry humping in front of an army of Star Wars figurines when the lights flickered on and a voice called out Marcus honey is that you? from an old woman in a light-pink nightgown with curlers in her hair standing in the doorway with her arms akimbo so I got the hell out of there running down the driveway with one shoe on one shoe off just wanting to get home to watch some Breaking Bad and binge on cherry walnut ice cream because by then I was really fucking starving.

Jennifer Lai’s stories can be found in or forthcoming from Star 82 Review, FlashFlood Journal, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Versification. She currently lives in Washington state with her thriving purple bell pepper and tomato plants.

Image by Estebanescu from Pixabay.