short story

차마. Endure. Concede. That’s the word she would’ve used. I stab the piece of meat on my plate, watching the blood flow out as I do exactly what she wants. I stay quiet.

My mother never found her soulmate. Instead, she found my father via the newspaper. The section was called “Eligible Bachelors, With Bachelor Degrees.”

There once was a girl who’d grown up hearing stories of divination come true.

She didn’t know what had happened, exactly. She knew that she had broken something, or that Cece had broken something. In any case, something was broken between the two.

That’s the sad thing—most people are like that. They think that a house is just a thing to be bought and sold. They really don’t get it. And what’s really horrifying is that those are precisely the people who can afford a house. 

Houses, like men, have bodies, as well as all assumed components: spines upholding them, limbs propelling them and rudimentary organs enriching them.

Her friends’ kind gesture brought her spirit back to life.

It was just past noon, 12:03 p.m. to be exact, that time of the day when shadows hide beneath one’s feet and everything appears stark, distinguished only by color, lacking depth.

He would’ve done anything to see her healthy again, and he did do everything.

She was twenty-five. Why did it feel as if her life had passed her by?