Trouble

/ Liz H-H
cracked heart picture in pavement

The challenge? Write a story in exactly 6 sentences based on Denise’s one word prompt: FLAKE. Visit, comment, and write & post your own on SIX SENTENCE STORIES . The Café is open. Come as you are!

The counter at the dive bar was sticky, and it grasped at her forearm as she lifted another whiskey to her pursed lips, which were dangerously numb at this point.

Too bad it couldn’t do the same to her feelings as it did to her lips; she drained the glass, letting it slither and land with a clatter as she lifted that same hand to draw deeply on her last cigarette.

This bar used to be her favorite spot, before she took up with him, before they moved their celebrations to classier places, before he kicked her to the curb for drinking and driving with his toddler…again; she’d been sure she loved the guy enough to keep things in check, but look at her now.

Shaking her head, she dropped the butt in her empty glass, noting the sizzle as it landed on an ice cube, and desultorily picking a flake of scum from the counter and flicking that in the glass as well.

She was out of dough, her credit card locked, her glass empty; time to go stumble on home.

A stranger’s rough voice cut through the fog, “Hey pretty lady, can I buy you a drink?”

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2025)

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