Arranged Complacency

by Hector Duarte
100 words


It had all been arranged; into a neat, little package.
He looked up at her and smiled and averted his eyes. It was difficult to maintain eye contact because it brought in him a sense of longing, quickly followed by a sense of shame. In knowing that in one year she’d be lying next to him, under the same sheets, her surname different.

“It’s what I chose for myself,” she’d once said. He was embarrassed by the fact he’d let himself be deluded by the prospect that perhaps he had a place in her plans: her plan B, of course.



Hector Duarte Jr. is an aspiring writer and seventh-grade Language Arts teacher. He resides in Miami, Florida.