Short Story | Cicadas

A short story writing contest submission.

There are summers that sit loud in the memory. Even years later, you can still hear them if you stop long enough. Cicadas rattling through the trees. Heat rising off pavement. That feeling of being young enough to be restless and old enough to know time is about to pull something away from you.

“Cicadas” came from that place.

Jake Monroe has been loading water jugs into trucks since he finished high school. The work is honest and heavy and only pays in sweat and routine. Then Erin Stafford steps out of a car that looks like it never left 1997, and everything he thought was settled starts shifting under his feet. She has been gone. College. New cities. A bigger world than Fort Worth. Now she’s here again for one last summer, bright and familiar, already on her way to the future.

There is history between them, but there is also distance. Familiarity and caution sitting in the same booth. They talk like people who remember who they were, but neither is sure who the other has become. Their days stretch long and bright, filled with the kind of small moments that don’t look like turning points until you look back on them. Cicadas buzzing in the trees. Gas station sodas sweating in the cupholders. Nights that end later than either planned, and conversations that leave more open than they close.

If “Cold Storage” looked at what we keep frozen, “Cicadas” looks at what burns through us before we can stop it. It’s a story about timing, about where we come from, and about the way people return to our lives carrying versions of themselves we have never met. Some summers are meant to define us quietly. This is one of those.

You can read it now on Reedsy. If something in it rings true for you, a like or comment helps it reach other readers. No pressure. Just an invitation.

Read “Cicadas” here: https://reedsy.com/short-story/eb3r30/

Author’s Note

I wrote “Cicadas” from the sound of August evenings and the ache of being twenty-three and uncertain. It’s a story about connection, distance, and heat you can’t outrun. If it sits with you after, I’m grateful. The original story was over 6,100 words long, but I cut it to less than half for submission.

Photo: Texas Ranch Resources, LLC