The first sign was an almost imperceptible creak coming from the wooden stands to the left, the ones with the 2002 vintage. I brushed it off and willed myself to focus on the deal at hand. What wine was good enough to say: yes I’ll invest $2M on you? The red cab and say blend was good. I took a step in that direction to remind myself of the aromas of that blend- the ones with chocolates notes usua...

“You’re a two,” the Spanish exchange student said to Ana as they stood outside of the college bar waiting for their other friends and deciding who would go on which car to the next bar. Ignacio was the exchange student’s name. He offered this rating with no context, they were not even speaking. Then he hopped on the passenger seat of the black jeep pickup truck.

Ana opened her eyes wide, trying t...

“What you must know about life,” I began, unsure I could pull this off, “is that you must live it by and for yourself.” I paused, that’s what you do for dramatic effect, right?

“You should not give your life meaning through others. Through the way they treat you, what they say to you, or ever worse- what you think they think of you.”

Practice what you preach, you hypocrite. Why was I so concern...

Anne stared at him intently. He- Lucas was his name- immediately realized she didn’t recognize him, but it didn’t upset him at all. Rather he relished the opportunity to make people, especially nice people, uncomfortable when he could.

“Anne,” he made stretched each of her name’s letters and made a big pause before proceeding, “Who would’ve thought we’d meet at a Wallgreens in middle of nowhere ...

The package room smelled like carton. Carton boxes and boxes on top of boxes. Not the ideal place to meet a lover. It was not like the Bridgerton gardens where Daphne met the Duke. My affair was possibly the complete opposite of that- it started and only developed in the constraints of a DHL package room. What was worse than the impregnating, artificial carton smell was the tape. It would get stuc...

Was that? No, no, it couldn’t be. Leah put her phone down for a moment and looked at her reflection in her white-rimmed bedroom mirror. A woman with white freckly skin stared back at her. That checked. Tucking a strand of brown hair behind her left ear Leah dared to reach out for her phone again. Slowly she inputed her old passcode-1397; she thought it was clever skipping odd numbers like that- an...

Exhausted from the running and the crying and the sun and the rain, she left. She didn’t know what she was leaving because she was still physically there, but she decided this was her leaving. Leaving the mental state of resignation and deciding she would go somewhere. Maybe leave town. Leaving had a nice ring to it. It was perpetually in process so she already felt like she had started it. And wh...

“What do you mean, it slipped?”

“I mean I… of course I didn’t know that he didn’t know”

Ari dropped her hands in desperation. Did Joe really just think she’d tell her 12-year-old that yes, he was her son but no, her husband was not his biological dad?

“How much did you tell him?”

“I basically… we were just joking around…”

This is why I should’ve stopped talking to Joe years ago, Ari thought. He...

The dogs were not barking, they were howling. Their howls pierced the night air not like a bat piercing the side of a piñata to unleash a candy cornucopia, but like a needle-pierced water balloon with so many holes you can’t stop it from spilling.

I stepped outside of my apartment and into the night’s black with a little less than $20 and no real plan. I usually didn’t mind the neighbor’s dogs, b...