“The Discipline of Ice”

This is where the story changes. You’ve made it this far — don’t stop now. Chapter 4 onwards is waiting for you inside the Club. $5/month. Cancel anytime. No questions asked. Join the Club

This is where the story changes. You’ve made it this far — don’t stop now. Chapter 4 onwards is waiting for you inside the Club. $5/month. Cancel anytime. No questions asked. Join the Club

Ice has always fascinated me. Not the kind you find in a bag at a gas station, all cloudy and misshapen, but the kind that forms with a quiet, deliberate precision. The kind that is sharp-edged and clear, that can hold a light within it and still be cold enough to burn. It’s a substance…

I’d expected awkward small talk, the kind of stilted conversation you have with a friend’s kid you haven’t seen in years, where you both pretend to be interested in each other’s lives for the sake of politeness.  I’d already prepared the polite, generic questions in my head.  *What are you studying? Got a girlfriend?*  The…

My name is Monique, and I should begin by stating the obvious, because the obvious is the only thing that keeps this story from sounding like the plot of a cheap paperback you’d buy in an airport and forget by the time you land.  Brian is my friend’s son. There. I said it. But before…

The sound of ice cracking in a glass is a specific kind of violence. It’s sharp, sudden, and final. A clean break.  I listen to it from across the room, the tiny explosion of frozen water surrendering to expensive whiskey, and I think about the last time I heard a sound like that. It wasn’t…