Pop Songs

by Julia Gilmour

The receptionist at the clinic looks me up and down before asking if I’ll be using insurance today. I’d like to, I think, but that would require insurance to know my plan for this afternoon, and the plan for this afternoon is supposed to be a secret. I fork over $500 in cash because to use my card would be to shout my secret to bank tellers, and that feels dangerous, too. The lobby is loving mothers, sisters, and surprisingly, children; the sidewalk is jagged-toothed picketers and women with braided hair, gray dresses, and bonnets. They say I’m going to Hell, and I think of a desert road trip in a small SUV, me and all my best girlfriends singing pop songs at the top of our lungs. It sounds like heaven.

6S

Julia Gilmour lives in the desert. She writes most of her fiction in the summer, when it's too hot to hike the trails. You can find more of her work on Instagram.