When the Wolf Comes Home

by Nat Cassidy

“Girls that do improv are cool. Guys that do improv are … the opposite of that.”

“I told you, it only works when you’re around the things you’re afraid of.” She hands it over to him and invites the kid to hop onto the twin bed in the corner of the room. “Why would I be afraid of you?”

“Oh yeah. I’m always scared of stuff. You get to be a certain age and they stop calling it scared and start calling it anxiety. But it’s all the same. Sometimes I even get so scared I accidentally make the thing I’m scared of come true too.”

For the rest of her life—her miserably long life—that scream continues. For the few hours she sleeps, she whimpers and groans miserably, and when she wakes up, her screams resume through vocal cords completely shredded and still, through a face twisted in uncomprehending misery. And no one—least of all she—knows why.

holy shit

Love is a shape-shifting monster,

“He was just so scared,” Jess says. Muses. As if she’s putting the final pieces of a puzzle in place. “All the time.”

Funny how this gunshot doesn’t sound anywhere as loud as the first.

Knowledge of behavior you can’t alter is the heaviest kind of knowledge, isn’t it?

I’m asking you—yes, you, most likely a total stranger to me. Please. Tell your stories. Share your transformations.

😭😭😭