Author: Allison McCabe

Deerfield Beach is Perfect

“Sometimes after a day at work you just have to have a drink,” she told me. I wanted to tell her that there was a hair in my BLT the night before. Instead I said “Oh I know,” and watched her exhale a plume of Kool smoke.

The History of Bass Players – excerpt

He kissed me in the middle of that wild undergrowth, dry grass, avocado and lemon trees, and then after that every time he played I felt something anchor in my chest, the lower octave, his crazy hair obscuring the intensity I pretended to see in his eyes.

Brokedown

He’s so new that kissing him feels like a relapse.

No Tell Motel

You only felt pain radiating through your bones, your fingers tight on the steering wheel, your other hand pressing down against your thigh to calm the ache.

Low Tide in D Minor

That love is still there, moving through amygdala to hypothalamus, tangled in my hair, sticky on my thighs.

The Wait

Debbie was tall and skinny, with dirty blonde hair and a scarred face. She had a black eye that she had unsuccessfully tried to hide with makeup. Her voice was raspy.

My AVM

There’s a foot long scar dissecting my torso. It starts at the top of my rib cage and extends down, at a slight diagonal angle, to just below my pubic bone.

Sexting

I heard the text message alert or saw the (1) on my Facebook tab and suddenly my skin was hot and my mouth was watering like one of Pavlov’s dogs.

Refraction

If you wear night-vision goggles, you can see certain wavelengths behind your sternum; infrared radiating through hairline cracks in your heart.

Seventeen

I remember the first time I left town after having a boyfriend. I don’t know if he was really a boyfriend because he still had a wife.

Property Of

I watched as he made one more basket, caught the ball and then went into his house through the side door.  The sun had set and his lights were on.  The windows over the kitchen sink cast two yellow rectangles onto his driveway. I could see his mom putting away dishes.