Things We Do in the Dark

by Jennifer Hillier

Paris’s husband might not have been her greatest love—that honor still belongs to someone she knew years ago, in a different life, when she was a very different person—but Jimmy Peralta was the love of this life, the one she built from the ashes of her old one.

the common denominator in all the terrible things that have happened to you is you. Everywhere you go, there you are.

The woman nods, her tears beginning to flow freely, though she makes no sound. Paris understands this, too. It’s always best to cry silently, so you don’t make things worse. Stop those fucking tears God I hate your face when you cry.

It looks like Ruby, but it’s not Ruby at all. And it’s not Mae, either. Mae is not the one who disappeared nineteen years ago and somehow ended up married to Jimmy Peralta. It’s Joey. What. The. Actual. Fuck.

“I understand more than you think,” Jimmy said. “You might have one previous version of yourself you don’t like. I have several. But this version of me, sitting here with you, is a version of myself I actually do like. And I don’t want to fuck it up by getting kicked out of the studio. You’re the best yoga instructor I’ve ever had.”

But sometimes the only way to start over is to burn it all down.

“You don’t know what it’s like to be born into a life of cruelty and abuse, and you don’t know what it’s like to have to claw your way out in order to have any sense of self-worth.

In the end, everybody leaves.