My dentist’s office is the color of a calm sea. A carefully chosen, psychologically tested blue meant to soothe nerves and lower blood pressure. Everything is clean, white, and sterile. The surfaces are smooth and unforgiving. There are no personal photos on the reception desk, no clutter, no signs of actual human life beyond the…
The thing about house parties is that they’re all the same architecture of chaos. The same sticky floors, the same bass line vibrating through the soles of your shoes, the same kitchen island littered with half-empty bottles of cheap wine and the sad, melted remains of a cheese plate. I was perched on a stool,…
My name is Eve. Yes, like that one. The original. The woman who got the ball rolling on humanity’s eternal, exhausting search for connection and subsequent disappointment. No, I didn’t choose it for the dramatic flair. My grandmother named me Evelyn, and Evvy was the natural, diminutive shorthand. But I don’t fight the comparison anymore….
My name is Eve. Yes, like that Eve.No, I didn’t choose it. But I grew into it. I was Evvy once. That’s what my grandma called me. So did boys who liked me just enough to stay for a while. I was soft. Convenient. Replaceable. Then I stopped answering to Evvy. This isn’t a tragic…
It happened a few weeks later. Not late at night. Not early morning. Just ordinary timing, which somehow made it worse. I came home after practice earlier than usual. Coach had cut us loose once the scrimmage started falling apart, and the bus dropped us off before the streetlights came on. The house was quiet….
The day Savannah moved in, it wasn’t snowing. It was late August. The kind of heavy city heat that sticks to the back of your neck and makes everything feel slower than it is. I was seventeen. Two weeks away from the start of senior year. Pretending I wasn’t thinking about college yet. Her boxes…
It started snowing sometime after noon. By the time Nora and I pulled up outside my mom’s place, the driveway was already white and the maple tree in the front yard looked heavier than usual, branches bending under it. “Your mom’s going to make us shovel before dinner,” Nora said, stepping out of the car….
I’m twenty-seven years old, holding my niece on my hip at my mom’s Christmas dinner, and Savannah is across the room laughing at something her husband said. Her husband. Chris. A genuinely decent guy I have no legitimate reason to dislike, which is honestly the most inconvenient part. She has snow in her hair. She…
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