No Exit

by Taylor Adams

There’s refuge in normalcy—if you can hold on to it.

This was America, where cops and robbers carry guns. Where, as the NRA tells us, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Hokey, but true as hell.

But still, throughout her childhood, whenever she woke up from a nightmare, her breaths hitching and her skin glazed with sweat, she’d glanced to her clock radio or phone. And eerily, the time had always been close to 3:00 a.m.

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.