Category: Fiction

CHAPTER 16: MATT Idrove without thinking, without planning, just following the roads I’d known my whole life until I found myself turning onto Maple Street. My parents’ house sat three blocks from the center of town, same white ranch they’d lived in since before I was born. The porch light was on. That was Mom’s

CHAPTER 15: ELENA Ilocked the door behind me. The house was warm after the cold outside, the smell of chili still hanging in the air. My hands were steady as I crossed to the back door and leaned the shotgun against the wall. No shaking, no adrenaline crash, no surge of emotion threatening to pull

CHAPTER 14: MATT The porch light was on. I let the car idle for a beat, then shut it off and stayed there anyway, too rung-out to move. The house looked the same as it always had with its white clapboard and green shutters, the old oak tree in the front yard that Elena used

CHAPTER 13: ELENA Dad made chili that night. It was his go-to comfort food, the recipe he’d been making since before I was born. Ground beef, kidney beans, enough chili powder to strip paint. Mom used to joke that she married him for his chili and stayed for his bedside manner. He’d always laugh and

CHAPTER 12: MATT Icleaned the bathroom twice. The first time, I scrubbed the tile until my knuckles were raw, got into the grout with a toothbrush the way Elena always said you were supposed to. Wiped down the mirror until there wasn’t a single streak, organized the cabinet with her moisturizer on the left and

CHAPTER 11: ELENA The goat didn’t want to cooperate. She was a young Nigerian Dwarf, caramel and white, with horizontal pupils that tracked me like I was the enemy. Her owner—a teenage girl named Becca who’d driven her here in the back of a Honda Civic—stood in the corner of the exam room wringing her

CHAPTER 10: MATT Icalled in sick for the first time in six years. Told Sergeant Donovan I had a stomach bug, maybe food poisoning. He said feel better, get some rest, see you tomorrow. I said thanks and hung up and sat there with the phone in my hand, staring at nothing. I wasn’t going

CHAPTER 9: ELENA Iwoke up in my childhood bedroom and, for a moment, nothing made sense. The ceiling was wrong, as was the light. Even the smell was all wrong—old wood and lavender instead of Matt’s cologne and the faint musk of the city. I blinked up at the water stain in the corner, the

CHAPTER 8: MATT Angela’s door was unlocked. I stepped inside and stopped. The mess hit me first: dishes overflowing the sink, a week of meals she never cleaned up. Wine bottles lined the counter like a row of little defeats. The blinds were shut, the room lit only by a lonely lamp that made everything

CHAPTER 7: MATT The taillights disappeared around the corner, and then she was gone. I stood in the driveway barefoot, gravel biting into my heels, watching the empty road like she might turn around. Like she might come back. She wasn’t coming back. The night air was cold. I hadn’t noticed until now, hadn’t noticed