My Cardboard Balcony

Tea Time by Belinda Roddie Wait 'til the chamomile cools enough to kiss me twice, the spices savored, the flavor embroidered with sweet caresses, our excited hands sneaking under each other's dresses.

"It was a prank!" she screamed at me, her face bright red and the tears nearly turning to steam on her broiling cheeks. "It was a prank, and how dare you suggest it was anything more than that!" We were facing off in the living room like it was a battle zone, the carpet a symbol for no man's land. On my side, my uncle and aunt, who had raised me ever since my parents had kicked me out. And my apparently not true lover, flanked by her Bible-bearing parents, ensuring that the battle would be brutal.