The hammering inside my head dragged me back to consciousness like a rusty anchor scraping against concrete. I cracked one eye open and immediately regretted it. The pale morning light filtering through Martin's thin blue curtains felt like needles jabbing straight into my brain. Christ. What did I drink last night? I tried to roll over on the couch, but something felt... off. My limbs moved with this strange, weightless...

It’s been a long winter in Seattle. The kind where the rain never really stops, just changes in volume. Days smear into nights until you forget when one ends and the other begins. Classes. Part-time work. Grocery runs between downpours. Reality is nothing like the glossy college life they show in movies: no endless sunny quads, no picture-perfect friend groups. Just damp hair, sore feet, and laundry that never seems to dr...

I was supposed to be studying. I had the books open, the highlighters uncapped, but my phone was face-up and glowing. One little red dot. Instagram. The message was from someone I didn’t follow. A guy. Profile picture looked like it had been taken with a cigarette between his fingers. ~Michael Hey… your look is really natural. We’re casting for an existing series, kind of first-time video vibe. Nothing crazy. If you’re cu...

I don’t remember who booked the hotel. Not me. Or Mads. Probably one of the other girls, after too many cocktails and not enough supervision. It wasn’t the Bellagio or anything fancy, but we had two connecting rooms, a working ice machine, and the kind of floral bedspreads that looked like they’d seen some things and wouldn’t judge if we added to the list. Vegas for Summer Break-slash-birthday-slash-we-survived-our-freshm...

I stepped onto the campus, backpack slung over one shoulder, and felt the pulse of it: the distant hum of air conditioners, the scrape of sneakers across concrete. My chest tightened. Today was the start of college. ASU, my first class. Freshman orientation had been a blur of names and pamphlets, but now it was the real thing. The classroom doors opened, and I stepped in, scanning for a familiar face, or maybe just the on...

Seattle breathes in shades of gray. Rain streaks down my window in crooked lines, blurring the buildings outside into shapes I don’t try to name. The sidewalks below shine like wet stone, slick and dark, reflecting the occasional flash of headlights. Somewhere, a bus sighs to a stop. I don’t look. It’s been raining since morning. Probably will continue all night too. That kind of cold that seeps in through the walls, no m...

By the time I finally see the roof of the cabin through the trees, my legs are shaking and my socks are wet with that cold, squishy kind of regret. They say it’s a four-hour hike… sure, if you’re a damn forest elf. For me, it takes almost seven, with the last hour spent second-guessing every turn and trying not to think about how fast the light is fading. The air has that brittle, late-October bite, and the trail is litte...

The house smelled like lemon polish and wealth trying not to show off. It was big but mostly empty like they’d only just moved in and hadn’t figured out what parts they wanted to live in yet. White walls. Pale wood floors. Big glass doors that looked out onto a backyard with a pool the color of glacier melt. Everything inside was sharp-edged and echoey like a magazine spread someone forgot to warm up. I didn’t mind. It wa...

The phone buzzed on the counter like it had something urgent to say. I dried my hands on a dish towel and checked the screen. Dahlia. Shit. I snatched it up before the second ring could finish and headed down the hall. My mom’s voice drifted from the living room, something about a recipe she’d seen online. Dad was watching the news, volume too loud like always. “Hey,” I answered in a low voice, already stepping into my ro...

I parked like I always did, way out in the corner of the mall lot, under that one sad-looking palo verde tree that gave zero shade. I don’t even know why I aimed for it. Habit, I guess. The asphalt was cracked out here, little weeds poking through like they were trying to escape. The sun was already doing its thing, baking the car roof and making heat shimmer off the windshield. Madeline slid out of the passenger seat slo...

It’s been eighteen months since I was last in Vegas. Since that room. Since the lights and music blurred together, and the walls closed in. Since the night I learned what happens when you say yes too easily. I don’t think about it much anymore. Not because I’ve forgotten, but because Dahlia showed me how to carry it without letting it bleed. Still, coming back here stirs something I don’t quite have words for. Vegas feels...

Fully Exposed By Welshman and LostCoyote ____ W ____ Well, it was definitely worthwhile coming all this way; more orders than I anticipated. The States was indeed going to be my company's biggest market. CES rocks! My flight back wasn't for a couple of days, so I had plenty of time to explore. But first, I was famished. I'd noticed a typical American diner earlier with actual waitress service! So I headed there intending...

It was summer in Vegas. Not that it was any cooler back in Scottsdale. Dry heat, yeah, but it still hits like an open oven when you step outside. In Arizona, you sweat and it disappears. In Vegas, it clings. The pavement breathes heat back at you like it's alive and pissed off. Even the nights stay hot, like the city’s too jacked up to sleep. I had come here for a friend’s birthday. A full week. One of those impromptu col...

It’s been almost a month since that party, but I still feel off. Like I’m moving through a world that doesn’t fully belong to me anymore. I follow the rules, hit the marks, snap the pictures, but part of me stays on edge. Not afraid. Just... charged. Chris started all this. My hot neighbor: the one I used to secretly watch mow his lawn shirtless, turned out to be something else entirely. My ticket in. The man who made me...

The past week had gone by quickly. My parents would be home in four days, and I could already feel the shift in the air. Like this strange little world I’d been living in, this secret space where I got to be someone else, or maybe more myself, was starting to dissolve at the edges. I’d spent every possible moment with Chris. He was my neighbor. The man I’d had a schoolgirl crush on since he moved in next door. At first, i...