AcmeShorts

Miss Me?

“Admit it,” she said as we left the final court hearing. “You’ll miss me.”

“Well,” I said, “do you remember that time five years ago when I cut my foot on that broken bottle? The doctor closed the cut with staples instead of stitches. It took fifteen staples. They stayed in my foot for a month. I kept snagging my socks on them and they’d seep a little blood. They itched all the time, but I couldn’t scratch them because I was afraid I’d open the cut. A couple of them got kind of rusty looking and I thought I might be getting blood poisoning. It hurt like hell when the doctor finally took them out with those weird little pliers. And he almost broke one off because it had actually started to grow into the bone. Then they ouzed puss for a couple of days, and I had to go back to make sure they weren’t infected. Do you remember all that?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“I’ll miss you like I missed those staples when they came out.”

She thought for a second, then broke into a smile.

“I knew it. I knew you’d miss me.”

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