During court proceedings, the advocate she’d been assigned kept telling her that everything Ronnie did was his fault. Only his. She re-played that message in her mind until she believed it. Or mostly believed it. But people judge. You can see it in their eyes, a calculation of how much trouble knowing you is worth.… Continue Reading
Tess can’t tell Brick how no one says that’s how I roll or how literally everyone knows his name is actually Allan. Or other things. Like, she sometimes skips school and seeks patterns in the cracked ceiling above his brother’s bed.
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Every time I heard that click, I couldn’t help imagining that drawer in her chest. That compartment sliding out. Sometimes I pictured skin, other times it was slippery as liver.… Continue Reading
Thrusting your own weight means thrusting a lot. Thrusting because of how it affects your body, not just by changing it, but putting it in proximity with other thrusting bodies. Thrusting because no weight on a bar feels heavier than lonesomeness in your abdomen.… Continue Reading
The area was a tame pocket of wilderness that attracted youth, as places like it sometimes will. Bike jumps loomed through the trees, the occasional empty cigarette packet, a graffiti-stamped drainpipe protruded from the creek’s end where many a young boy or girl’s courage was no doubt tested.… Continue Reading
The next time your dad calls from Atlantic City, you do as you’re told. You open the safe, pack the cash, and head to Western Union.… Continue Reading
Jerome recognizing the man’s profile, asking himself if karma really was the bitch everyone said it was or did payback simply come down to a man taking action after he’d decided enough was enough?… Continue Reading
Our father studied geology and psychology. Was a science teacher, until students proved alien. A stint in the Air Force as potential NASA pathway. Gravity defeated him, exacted its price for warp speed.… Continue Reading
But today, Gary leans forward, breathing emotionally like a heavyset wolfhound, pained, invites me animally into his personal funk (I don’t mind the intimacy, I’m in a good place in my life now), and pulling me in close with his big brown furry eyes—they’re frame-draggers reflecting morass—he moans, “It’s over. It’s over.”… Continue Reading
K’s spending the night at mine because this time his pop has beat him real bad. It’s come out that K’s mom had another kid before she ever met him and K’s pop’s furious, been on a helluva bender for days, which only ever leads to one thing. Fists.… Continue Reading