Smithereens | John H. Leavitt

"Her name was Shannon and she belonged to a large family of children with broken bones. The bones weren’t all broken at the same time. They got broken one right after the other, like falling dominoes..."

Day Is Done | Shannon Coghlan Reiss

"The gunny almost always kept a wad of singles in the top drawer of his filing cabinet, and I sometimes wondered if he left them there specifically for me..."

Still Renting | Joshua Michael Maher

"I am not as hungry as I used to be. I don’t count pennies at night anymore. I don’t recycle cans and bottles; I just leave them on the curb..."

Angel Dust | Alex Behr

"Gib holds his pee and doesn’t laugh when one kid stutters on the rug. He chews and tries to swallow mustard-flavored meat. Aiden calls him short. That is first grade..."

New Old Friends | Alethea Tusher

"I find the cost-benefit of social exertion in party-like or party-actual atmospheres (like this one) not worth all the hygiene that I’m mostly neutral about..."

We Need to Talk about Karen | Dorothy Cornish

"You recognise how extremely serious this is? I mean, you can see how it looks from our side, right? Good. Yeah. Sure. Michele, would you get her some tissues?..."