"Like a Virgin" by Kerry Byrne

Under a dayglow sun, you crawl along Witham Way, windows down, glad of the roadworks that slow the traffic as you imagine the Capri gleaming diamond white in the queue of regular Fords. The faux-leather seat burns your still-slim thighs as you flip down the sun visor to check yourself out in the vanity mirror, your shutter shades neon-pink and fringe Sun In-streaked and stiff with spray. You push in the tape you mixed the night before for Steve who rests his hand on your lap, fingering the hem of your denim mini, and you turn up the volume as if pop will transform the poverty-paved street with the promise of summer. Of being Sweet Sixteen. And that’s when you see her. On the corner, outside the newsagents. The shine of bomber jacket and Docs. Baby-blonde hair feathering her otherwise shaven head. You hide behind the plastic slats of your glasses. But she hears Madonna blaring from a cut and shut. And when she gives you the finger, all you will remember is her smile. 

Kerry Byrne lives and writes in the Cambridgeshire Fens, UK, with a backdrop of sky-filled water and an endless horizon. Her writing has been published by Ellipsis Zine, Lucy Writers, Pidgeonholes, streetcake magazine and Bandit Fiction, among others. In 2022, Kerry received an MLitt in Creative Writing with Distinction from Glasgow University. She is currently working on a collection of short fiction and poetry inspired by the Fens.