Forehead

AI-generated image

by Huina Zheng

Lan hated it when people joked about her forehead. Whenever classmates chanted, “Big-forehead Lan, never buys a raincoat. When storms roll in, she just forehead-brella and stays dry!” she would lower her head and hurry away.

All her life she hid behind thick bangs. Even when pimples bloomed from the sweat trapped underneath, she refused to change.

Not until she left for college in another city. At the salon, the stylist, a young, handsome man, washed her hair. She lay back, tense. Warm water ran over her scalp as his fingers gently brushed her bangs aside.

“Oh, wow,” he exclaimed. She squeezed her eyes shut, fists clenched in despair.

“Such a beautiful forehead. Full, elegant, perfectly shaped. Why would you ever hide it?”

For the first time, Lan wept not from shame, but from showing her forehead.

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Huina Zheng is a writer and college essay coach based in Guangzhou, China. Her work appears in Baltimore Review, Variant Literature, Midway Journal, and other journals. She has received multiple nominations, including for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfiction.