All the Dangerous Things

by Stacy Willingham

for me. It’s been giving me hope, Izzy. And I want

Nobody ever stops to wonder what happens in the dead of night, all the things that take place when the world is unconscious. The strangers who lurk in the shadows, crouching low beneath a window or twisting the knob of an unlocked door. The animals who hunt, warm blood dripping from their teeth as they feast on the meat of another. We just assume that when we fall asleep, the world does, too. We expect it to resume exactly as it was in the morning, untouched. Unbothered. As if life just stops because we have.

blink again, look around. I’m in my dining room, sitting at the table, my laptop dead in front of me and case file papers strewn across the floor. I glance

her mother and her father, her siblings, her grandparents. Of looking them in the eye, trying to fake a lip quiver, maybe even squeeze out a tear. Of reciting the words I knew I was supposed to say—I’m so sorry for your loss—but knowing, deep down, that their loss was my

with plastic trays of sweaty

steps, hands punched into his