Miles In Her Shoes

short fiction

“How are you today?” an apathetic boy asks, waiting for the items on the conveyor belt to reach him.

He just turned sixteen. Greasy, chin-length hair. Tall, skinny, pale-faced, acne. The nametag on his shirt says “Miles,” but that’s not his real name. His parents didn’t buy him the car he wanted for his birthday, so he had to ride his bike to work. His co-workers gave him shit about it.

“Fine,” an agitated girl replies.

She just turned nineteen. Long, dark hair tied in a knot. A wilted dandelion behind one ear. Loose fitting clothes, no makeup, dark circles under her eyes. A crying baby strapped to her chest. She doesn’t have a car anymore. She walked here from her apartment, four miles away.

“Find everything you need?” the boy mumbles. He tries not to wince as the baby screeches, causing the heads of several customers in the adjacent line to turn and gawk shamelessly.

“Ssh …” the girl soothes. “… sorry, what?”

The boy spots a blob of fresh spit-up on the girl’s shoulder and looks away. “…