Drive Me Home

by Katie Fitzgerald

I’d have preferred working on a car, but there I sat on campus, itchy in dress clothes borrowed from my brother, drinking fancy coffee with Winnie and her brainiac friends. Devon and Asher were discussing Flannery O’Connor. Wanting to show interest, I asked, “Who’s he?” I couldn’t even look at Winnie when they laughed and informed me she’s a woman.

“Hang in there, Grayson,” Winnie whispered, squeezing my shoulder as she went to the microphone to read. I’d never understood poetry, and as metaphors and whatnot rolled off her tongue, I felt like the world’s biggest idiot.

Next to me, Devon leaned in and said, “If you need to go, I can let her know. Obviously, this isn’t your thing.”

For a minute, I tugged at my over-starched collar and considered the road ahead. I’d always imagined I’d end up with someone who worked with her hands: a baker, maybe, or a hairdresser. This world of thinking, writing and debating was exhausting. It’d be hard, probably, for me to do this all the time. But looking up there at Winnie as she confidently spoke the beautiful words she’d written, it was so obvious to me. She loved this stuff.

And . . . I loved her. The realization was like starting an engine. One minute there was nothing, and the next there was this hum at the center of everything, and all systems came to life. I couldn’t see all the obstacles ahead, but if we were doing the journey together, we’d find a way to swerve around every last one.

“Nah, I gotta stay, man,” I said. “She’s my ride.”

🩷🩷🩷

Katie Fitzgerald is the author of Library Lovebirds, an ebook collection of bookish romances, and a novel in flash, The Bennetts Bloom. Her short stories and flash fiction appear online at Spark Flash Fiction and Micromance Magazine, as well as in various anthologies. She is a 2024 Sparkie Award recipient for Best Romantic Suspense and a nominee for the Pushcart Prize and the Cupid Prize. A graduate of Vassar College and a trained librarian, Katie resides in Maryland with her husband and five kids.