The phone rang twice. A deep, gravelly voice answered, heavy with an accent I hadn’t heard in two decades. “Who’s this?” “Your niece’s…
For a full minute, I just stared at the sliver of darkness. My hand, still holding the warm coffee mug, was shaking so…
The world didn’t just go dark; it collapsed. One second, I was scrubbing. The next, I was falling. The scent of expensive wood…
The mall security finally rushed over, their faces pale and sweaty. They looked at Ethan, clutching his wrist, then at me, an unassuming…
The fluorescent lights of the St. Jude’s emergency room waiting area felt like interrogation lamps. Every flicker seemed to mock me, buzzing in…
We were almost ready to start our Saturday, and I couldn’t hold it in anymore. The fake smiles, the dancing, the intimacy from…
I didn’t hear him. Not at first. I was just staring at the chrome on my handlebars, thinking about the price of gas…
The sunlight had this perfect, hazy quality, the kind you only get in late August in Oregon. It filtered through the big maple…
The knock on the guest room door was so soft I thought I’d imagined it. It had been two days since the Incident.…
The sharp smell of antiseptic was a suffocating blanket, mixing with the rhythmic, mechanical beeping of the heart monitor. It was the only…