BY CHANTAL CORCORAN
When she was still learning to tie her shoes, a band of girls from her new neighborhood convinced her to drop her pants. In the dim underground garage that was damp with the morning’s rain, she leaned up against the bike rack, her daisy-printed shorts gathered at her flip-flops.
“Close your eyes and turn a circle,” the oldest girl said, snickering.
She snickered, too, aroused in her exposure and pleased for acceptance.
Then they became quiet.
It was a long minute before she opened her eyes.
The taste of shame caught in her throat like medicine. She watched them leap oil stains in the concrete, racing out toward the sunshine, without her. The brightly-colored strings of their halters, double knotted across golden backs.
Chantal Corcoran is a Canadian living, writing and playing under the neon lights of Las Vegas. She's also a graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars and a 2016 Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work can be found at The Rumpus, The Common, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle Review, Litro, Monkeybicyle, The Milo Review, Lost Magazine, and in various local Southern Nevada publications.