Your Turn

by Elena L. Zhang

She shakes two dice cupped between her palms, a chaotic dance of cubes clattering against each other in the dark, and tries in vain to catch his gaze, but he is staring absently out the window, drawing a glass of white wine to his lips, a balm to soothe his sore throat, scratched raw and echoing of expletives, and he is buzzed on the alcohol but she is buzzed on the game they’ve been playing for so long, the uncertainty, the possibility tumbling inside of her hands like clothes in a washer machine and no one knowing if the stain will come out, and when she separates her hands, he finally turns to look, the dice tumbling onto the stained coffee table while together they count the dots silently, hearts beating in sync for the first time in eleven years as she sighs the sum, stands up, and leaves her ring in the prize box, a duffel bag slung over her shoulder, but before crossing the threshold, she glances back and catches the rare sight of his smile. It feels like a victory. 

BIO: Elena Zhang is a Chinese American writer and mother living in Chicago. Her work can be found in HAD, JAKE, Bending Genres, Exposition Review, Your Impossible Voice, and Gone Lawn, among other publications, and has been nominated for Best Microfiction 2024.