He’d left his jacket at home.
“You okay there, champ?” called a kid from a passing pickup truck.
He typed back: “Just ate pavement in a grocery store parking lot. Shopping cart came out of nowhere. It had a death wish.” gottaluvapril
Three dots appeared. Then: “Was anyone filming? Could be your big break.”
Leo stared at the screen. Then at the sky, which had started spitting sleet. Then at his own pathetic reflection in the rearview mirror—forehead lump, runny nose from the cold, a smear of mud across his cheek. He’d left his jacket at home
He laughed. It hurt his face. He laughed harder. The sleet turned to actual snow—fat, wet flakes that melted on his windshield and made the world look like a shaken snow globe. April, everyone.
Leo gave a thumbs up so sarcastic it should have required a permit. Shopping cart came out of nowhere
Then he put the car in reverse, drove home, made mac and cheese, and ate the cantaloupe he’d nearly died for.
Now, at 4:47 PM, the sky had turned the color of a week-old bruise. The wind had teeth. And Leo was standing in the parking lot of a grocery store, shivering, holding a single bag of frozen peas—not for dinner, but for the egg-sized lump forming on his forehead.
The April sun was a liar. It poured honey-gold light over the cracked sidewalk, made the new daffodils nod their heads like sleepy children, promised warmth. Leo fell for it every single time.
It wasn’t even ripe.