The security guard was about to throw him out, thinking the poverty covering his body was a stain in front of the wealthy customers. But at that exact moment, the…

The monitors were still beeping when my boss told me to “separate work from your private life,” and the words seemed to dissolve into the sterile air of the hospital…

My name is Opal. I am twenty-seven years old, and three weeks ago, I watched my own mother cry in a courtroom. Not because she was sorry for what happened…

The hospital room smelled of antiseptic and the faint, coppery tang of birth. I lay against the stiff white pillows, my body a map of aches and exhaustion. It had…

The snow didn’t fall on Blackwood Ridge; it assaulted it. The wind howled through the skeletal trees like a dying animal, stripping the warmth from the air until every breath…

I know the exact time because I’d been awake for hours, watching the red digital numbers on my nightstand tick forward with that peculiar, mocking insistence that only insomnia brings….

The smell of vanilla extract and browned butter filled my kitchen, a scent designed to disarm. To the outside world, and specifically to my son-in-law, Mark, this scent was the…

The dining room chandelier was a gaudy thing, dripping with faux crystals that scattered fractured light across the Thanksgiving table. It was much like my family: flashy, fragile, and utterly…

My daughter stood before the crowded dining table, a shimmering anomaly in a room suffocated by beige propriety. She was seven years old, draped in a sparkly gold dress she…