Birthday with Al

This was going to be her first birthday with Al. She smiled and her fingers lifted involuntarily to the potted ferns in front of her. The leaves were immaculate but she had to check them for caterpillars everyday. Just in case. Her stomach was in knots, fearing she had missed anything out in the excitement. For a long time now, her commitment had been to something far more addictive than Al. Less dependable, destructive even. It was something her friends couldn’t understand and she didn’t want them to. Al had come along at a bad time when she was at the peak of her dependency with it. The more she tried to hide it from him, the more it showed itself. But she didn’t have to go through all that trouble, really. Al didn’t want her to hide anything from him.
She jumped back in dismay. Many of the leaves of the fern lay crushed at her feet and she quickly picked every fragment up from the balcony to throw away.
“Hey, where’s my pretty lady?” Al shouted from downstairs.
Going past the balcony door into the interior, she counted, “one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine” as she twisted the lock close behind her.

Louise Tay