
I was standing in my quiet living room, the Arizona desert wind brushing against my windows, when I called my…

The candy bar snapped in half at the exact same moment the woman’s patience did. Chelsea heard the chocolate crack…

The insulin pump lay on our kitchen counter like a forgotten toy, its thin tubing curled beside the blinking glucose…

The lipstick felt like a crime. It sat there on Claudia’s mouth, a thin swipe of soft red in the…

The first time my heart tried to quit on me, I was staring at a brown water stain on the…

The night my father tried to hand ninety-six million dollars to my little brother, the snow outside our Minnesota mansion…

A ribbon of midnight-blue smoke curled upward from the skyline of Columbus, Ohio, the way heat ripples above a long…

The stapler missed her face by less than an inch. It hit the whiteboard behind her with a sharp, metallic…

The first thing I remember is the sound the crystal made when it hit the hardwood, a bright, shocked chime…

The divorce papers slid across the plastic table right next to the sheet cake that said “CONGRATULATIONS, JIM!” in red,…

By the time the three black SUVs swung up to the curb outside the Cornerstone Coffee in Portland’s Pearl District,…

By the time the cereal went limp, my son still hadn’t taken a single bite. Morning light from a gray…

By the time the baseball bat shattered the kitchen glass, the sirens were already on their way. I was standing…

The snow was falling sideways the night they left me to die. It wasn’t gentle, Christmas-card snow. It was the…

The first thing people noticed wasn’t the judge, or the seal of the State of New York hanging above his…

The porcelain teacup rattled so violently against the saucer that for a heartbeat I thought it might crack in half….

By the time the little girl in the soaked red dress stumbled up the icy driveway toward the iron gates…

By the time I realized my wedding dresses had been sliced open, the carpet in my childhood bedroom looked like…

By the time I realized my little brother was holding a bloody knife, the digital clock on my nightstand said…

The shuttle’s taillights bled red across the Virginia driveway as my son’s luggage rolled away, and I stood there on…