No Exit

by Taylor Adams

Whoever seems like the nicest character, at first, will always turn out to be the asshole in the end.”

“Yo, Darbs, where are you going?” Darbs. She hadn’t been called that since fifth grade. “Trying again to get a cell signal. My mom’s got pancreatic cancer and she’s in a hospital in Provo.” Without giving Ashley time to respond, she stepped outside into the howling storm, flinching against a wall of bone-chilling air, and recalled an offhand little saying she’d heard once from her mother: The easiest lies to tell are the true ones.

There’s refuge in normalcy—if you can hold on to it. Outside Lars’s van, she kept counting.

Darby preferred to live her life wide-eyed, tormented, running, because nothing can catch you if you never stop.

The difference between a hero and a victim? Timing. At the table, Ashley fanned out the cards in a smooth rainbow, all facedown except a single, upturned ace of hearts. “And here’s your card.”

You want to know the secret to ruining your life? It’s never one big black-and-white decision. It’s dozens of little ones, that you make every single day. It’s excuses, mostly, in my case. Excuses are poison.

“Excuses are poison,” Ed repeated. “Doing the right thing is hard. Talking yourself out of it is easy.

History doesn’t quite repeat itself, but damn, it sure can rhyme.

Don’t fear the pros, Darby. The pros know what they’re doing, and do it cleanly. Fear the amateurs.

Sometimes God puts people exactly where they need to be. Even when they don’t know it.