Turn 3 of 17

Nervously giggle and tell Mia this joke isnt funny anymore. Looking at her, she looks back without sympathy, then she seems to start getting bigger. Her head getting an inch closer then 2 inches closer. But its not her its you, dwindling from 6 foot 2 to 5 even. Now, Mia syas, it will be so easy to overlook you

The giggle escapes again — high, fluttery, and this time it comes with words riding on it, your voice climbing toward the top of its range as you turn to face her.

"Mia. Okay. Okay, this — this isn't funny anymore," you say, and even that comes out breathier than you mean it to, the vowels rounder, the pitch wobbling. "Stop it. Please."

She looks back at you without a flicker of sympathy. Her expression is calm the way deep water is calm, and she simply stands there while the strangest thing begins to happen: she seems to grow. Her head rises an inch closer to yours. Then two. Her shoulders widen against the shadowed wall, her eyes leveling higher and higher, and for one dizzy heartbeat you think she's swelling, stretching, becoming something huge.

Then the floor comes up to meet you.

It isn't her. The hem of her sweater doesn't move; the light switch behind her stays exactly where it is. It's you — sinking, your jacket suddenly heavy on shrinking shoulders, your work shirt ballooning around you as your frame narrows inside it. You watch the top of the doorframe drift upward in your vision, watch Mia's chin pass above your eye level, and your knees bend slightly as your center of gravity rewrites itself. The drywall that was a hand's width over your head is now far away. Your feet slide loosely in your shoes, which no longer fit. Your belt cinches uselessly around hips that are settling lower, closer to the ground.

You grab the coat hook for balance, and it's at your shoulder now. It used to be below your chin. You are — you do the math and the math refuses to come out — you are five feet nothing, standing in a puddle of your own trousers' extra length, looking up. Way up. At Mia.

"There," she says, and her voice comes down to you from above now, unhurried, almost warm. "Now it will be so easy to overlook you, Dylan. The way you overlooked them."