All the Dangerous Things

by Stacy Willingham

At the time, it reminded me of the stars: how two can collide and fuse into one—bigger, brighter, stronger than before. But what I didn’t know then was that when they collide too fast, they don’t fuse at all. Instead, they explode, evaporating into nothing.

Politics and religion were always welcome in our house, but emotions and feelings and all those other sticky subjects were simply buried beneath piles of money and presents until they disappeared altogether.