Prompt: A woman discovers she can hear the last thought every person had before they forgot it — not their memories, but the exact moment the memory slipped away. One day she hears her own.

It was a Saturday morning. Rain was hitting the sides of my apartment window. I walked over to look down at the cars and saw the splashes as each one turned the corner over that frustrating pothole that never fails to get me too.
My roommate was lying in her bed listening to her headphones and flipping through my favorite magazine, though I can never get the name right—“Sju-iz”, “Sju-az?”
Then I heard it…with my fingers gracing my brittle bottom lip as I stood watching those cars go by and pulling at my tan colored soft sweater with my other hand, I heard her voice.
“Sadie, remember to take the money from under that spot in the floor and move it somewhere else before she finds it.”
“What?” I say, turning swiftly to Sadie.
With her black chipped fingernails she grabbed at the big part of her beats headphone, the one that was white with the golden rim, and slid it down from one ear.
“You say something?” She asks.
“No, I didn’t. You did,” I said with clear certainty and curious to what amount of money she was talking about. Seeing as she is always late with her part of the rent, I was very much invested—in more ways than one.
“Maybe you just heard me singing the words to this song I’m listening to.” She then shrugged and pulled the headphones back over her ear.
I pondered a moment longer before feeling a scratching pain in my hand. I looked down and had to unroll my fingers from my sweater that was now stained with deep wrinkles.
Over dinner I brought it up again, but it seemed Sadie genuinely did not remember what she said. I can always tell when she’s lying because she bites at her nails nervously.
It felt like nothing that day, but that was just the first time. It happened with everyone, everywhere I went. When I would hear someone speak, I would ask them to elaborate but no one ever seemed ever remember what they just said.
It happened so much that eventually I stopped asking and pretended that I never heard them. Then one day while being face-to-face with my shameful boss, I heard her speak too, only—her mouth never moved.
She was looking right at me, talking about what she would have for dinner but she wasn’t talking. I couldn’t understand, her voice was loud and normal like any regular person talking.
Then, my world began spinning. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in my bed back at my apartment. Was it a dream? Wasn’t I just at work? I sat up at the edge of my bed trying to think back to all those times I had heard people saying things.
Not once do I recall seeing their mouths actually moving. I grabbed the sides of my face cupping hand shadows over it. They felt hot and my breathing was short enough to match the new but familiar rhythm of my beating heart.
“Can a person really…can I really…read people’s thoughts?” I jumped up and went back to the window, “wait what was I just doing?”

Thank you for reading and if you’re interested in following me for more short stories and my other works subscribe below!