The bikini felt too tight beneath her sarong. She’d swathed Vaseline on her thighs so she could walk from the lockers to the pool without them rubbing raw. But she’d forgotten to put the jelly around the edge of the bikini panties, the line where it scraped up against her inner thighs. “That will hurt later,” she realized. Vella tried not to think about her bulging tummy or the snickers of the teenage boys sitting on lounge chairs poolside. “I love my body,” Vella repeated to herself, and inhaling, whipped off the sarong before diving headfirst into the cold water.
Jamie Etheridge's work has been published in X-R-A-Y, (mac)ro(mic), Bending Genres, JMWW, Versification, and Emerge Literary Journal among others. Find Jamie on Twitter @LeScribbler.