What if the sun falls from the sky? What if it drips fire down down down and lands in North Carolina? What if you and Tammy switch clothes and pretend to be each other? What if Dad dies in a car crash on the way to Greensboro? What if the babysitter doesn’t make a comment…

“I just don’t know if I can continue in this relationship if you keep acting this way,” I told Janet.  “When you really love someone,” she said, echoing our therapist, “you have to make sacrifices and accept them for who they are, warts and all.” We were lying in bed, talking in the same circles…

Lucy shows the signs.  Her mother hovers. “Lucy? Lucy? Are you listening to me?”  She raises a vague gaze to her mom. Lately, Lucy holds most things that make their way to her (homework assignment, detention slip, boyfriend) in a similarly vague fashion—lightly, poised to let them go. Finding them in her possession, she murmurs…

“You’re a corn stalk in a field of soybeans,” he says. This, from a most vulnerable position, down on one knee, peering up at the cheer captain. In his open palm he’s holding a Ring Pop. It’s still in the packaging. “Ew,” she replies, with a sideways glance. By now a small end-of-the-day crowd has…

My mother always says, “A little water never hurt anyone.” She means, don’t worry if you get caught in the rain. You’re not made of sugar. You won’t melt. She means, don’t worry if you knock over your water glass at that fancy restaurant on your second date, and the glass breaks and soaks the…

A-Side: “Can’t Feel My Face” – The Weeknd – Beauty Behind the Madness

I got in the car with the girls after the ceremony. They were as talkative as ever; Stephanie may have been more talkative than usual. I told myself it was a defense mechanism—that it helped them cope with the loss or made them feel like they had some level of control, even if it was…

The apartment wakes him with gentle cheer. The shower washes him, the closet dresses him, the kitchen has his breakfast ready on the counter when he walks out. Scrambled egg whites, a slice of whole wheat toast and a single link of sausage. He compliments the apartment on the spread. The apartment accepts the compliment…

At the interview, you’re fixated on the manager’s eyebrows, which look like gerbils hanging on his face. The eyebrows seem animated as if they might do flips or wave their little paws. You expend a lot of energy and concentration on not looking at his eyebrows yet still looking into his eyes. This explains why,…

The word hung in the sterile air between them: Insufficient. A judgment passed down from a leather chair, sealed by the rustle of papers. Dr. Tanaka cleared his throat, his gaze fixed on a point just over Yumi’s shoulder. “The criteria for seidoitsusei shogai—gender identity disorder—are quite specific, you understand. We need a consistent, long-term…

The observatory at the top of the mountain has changed since we were here last spring. Some animals have moved in and the computer now runs slower and the NASA logo on the wall is flaking away like the patch on your old coat. Signs have fallen or disappeared along dark corridors leading to dark…

Lucky Snake My grandmother willed half of her thirty-acre farm estate to the young handyman who frequently visited her house to fiddle with the old wiring and oil the creaky doors, a leather toolbelt slung low on his hips. The document she’d printed from Wills.com stated that this was because he reminded her of my…