The affair brought you closest to the real you. He was a stay-at-home dad who'd decided that raising his twin daughters would be more fulfilling than designing houses for people who had more money than taste or common sense. His wife was a prominent attorney whom he was afraid to leave because she would destroy him in the divorce. He knew this because she'd told him so after his first affair. 

Thick-soled rubber scuffed against loose gravel, tiny stones skittering forward. Leather whined as it tightened its grip on heavy, unyielding plastic. Sleeve after sleeve linked to form a wall of cotton resistance. Behind curved plastic, attention narrowed. Focused.

Ava had been taken aback by his directness. She had never been a casual person, always thinking in the long term. But something about Elliot made her want to say yes anyway, she just had this feeling about him. And, so, she decided to see what this casual dating thing was all about. 

I looked at the two bassinets. Both babies were either sleeping or didn’t like the bright lights of the nursery; it was impossible to tell the difference. “You know, in about fifty percent of the world, we’d already be talking about marrying our children off to each other.”

I could tell that spending time with my parents made Eve miss her family. By that time, I had suggested we go visit them many times, but she would always refuse—“It’s not the right time,” she would say, or, “I’m just not ready.” I didn’t push. Another month went by. 

“I haven’t seen the doctor in two years,” the voice says again, making me flinch. “I’m worried about what the doctor will find.” The spoon falls into the bowl. The heap of oatmeal looks bloated and sickly. The malignant cells in the raisins have undoubtedly metastasized.

The light thickened into blood that pooled at my feet in a methodical flood, and there were things in the blood, nameless shapes that bobbed just beneath the surface. I stumbled backwards, slipped, fell three steps, and grasped onto the banister. Then I turned and hobbled after my friends, my own panicked breath not loud enough to diminish the sound of blood dripping behind me.

I plunk my keys onto the entryway hook, noticing the stack of newspapers I have been collecting for the last few weeks have disappeared. “Me scare the hell outta you?” I ask, clicking the door closed behind me. “You’re in my apartment.”

It wasn’t long before Harold was predicating. Speaking in short sentences, Harold confirmed what his preliminary remarks had foreshadowed. “This kibble’s stale.” “My water’s warm.” “Lower taxes trickle down.” 

The man met her gaze with rheumy eyes that welled with fresh tears. Justine felt her own throat tighten as she spoke in hurried, hushed tones. “My mother’s an invalid. We can’t travel. But you and your family could still book a flight, or just get in your car and drive. Get as far away as you can before it happens.”

Another. You’ll be just another in the crowd, fingertips pressed to the window pane and you’ll step inside our shop, buy cards and absinthe and oils, and I’ll keep twirling, pour fake tea from kettle, I’ll perform for you--blonde skulled and tiny. Quiet my throat. Pink lace gripped at my little wrists like teeth. 

I start to walk away, but I pause, trying to convince myself that we haven’t just crossed a line. Alone time without Juno’s consent is forbidden. We are restricted from socializing outside the jurisdiction of our appointed duties.

I always get a little nervous when I’m asked to help somebody move. You learn things about people. Unless they box up every single little thing (and who does that?), you get little unguarded glimpses into their lives when you’re in amongst people’s stuff. 

I feel the draft from the hallway. I hear the scrape and clap of her pumps. Then she’s turning on the lights. She looks at the bottle of Burrowing Owl breathing on the kitchen table and nods. Her hands slide across her stomach. She looks down at me with the same expression every week: one part surprise that I’m actually there, one part a strong desire to laugh out loud. 

You glance around at the same place that held birthdays, barbeques, movie nights. The memories burst from their unmarked graves at the back of your mind. They form a pool behind your eyes, congealing into bitter teardrops that are on the verge of falling. You blink them away, making it all nothing but a few wet spots on your sleeve before slouching to your room and locking the door. 

The blood rushes in and out of my cheeks, a turbulent tide. I’m afraid of tomorrow. And every day after. I don’t close the door right away when you leave. I watch you pick a dandelion from the sidewalk and study it curiously. As if you’ve never witnessed an identity crisis before. I think you’re going to make a wish—hope that you do—hope that it’s about me—but instead you stick it under the windshield wiper of a stranger’s car before calling a Lyft. I watch the sun rise behind the vacation homes and it’s so painfully ordinary in comparison. 

He asks me why my hand is on his shoulder. Um, well I don’t know, I respond. He takes my hand from his shoulder and holds it. He examines my hand, as if he has never seen it before. I wonder if he’ll do the same to my eyes, just like he used to when we’d spend our time alone. If I could, I’d faint.

I have no control over my mouth as it yells and shouts. All I want him to do is hear. To wake up and listen.
My glass house is shattering and the little girl in a blue dress runs out chasing a rabbit.

I am the girl. She is the rabbit. But I run circles around her

and I cannot pause.

I was almost certain that the neighbor was a serial killer. The small doubt came from the fact that we both watched Game 6 of the 2011 World Series together – the same night the neighbor’s television broke – and got along famously. That doubt was erased, when, on that same night, I was bludgeoned to death with a remote right as David Freese hit that game-winning home run in the bottom of the 11th inning.