Fiction

The lies are ready on your lips, practiced, you done this a thousand times, but you falter. You falter and shatter the illusion of truth.

Rori Acher is eighteen years old and dying. Any licensed medical professional would pronounce her perfectly healthy. But there are many ways to be dying that are not physical. 

It's 9 o'clock on a Saturday- 9:00 AM, that is, when Mom made lemonade for the annual summer party at our house. Fresh-squeezed lemonade. It is sitting in a cooler on the small table in the tiny house in our backyard. 

There once lived a boy who was 11 years old. His parents were never at home and they never cared about what he did. This caused him to become a spoiled kid. His name is Jordan.

        Lex and Kyle are siblings who shared a dream: to become superheroes. They would spend hours flipping through comic books while their parents discussed the intricacies of fine wine.

It's quiet. Just the rumbling of the car. My friend is asleep next to me, their head on my shoulder. I open the windows. The breeze is nice and cool and rustles my hair. As soon as the window is open, it reveals the sound of crickets.

Grandma used to make lemonade.

It wasn't hot for once. Ohio remains hot every summer but the night seems to be like cold water poured over a fire pit:

the heat lightens up but the smoke of it hangs in the air, the remnants of what it was before.

You and me, hand in hand like always. From the moment I met you, I’ve felt safe and I can’t really explain why. Maybe it’s the way your whole face smiles when I round the corner, maybe it’s the way we are always laughing.

“Mama, will you tell me my story again?” Asks the little girl in my lap.

Silence, loud, deafening silence. I can’t look her in the eyes, but I can’t rip mine away, so I stare. It’s not awkward or anything, I mean she’s staring too.

There was cedar in the beginning and then there were candy canes.