"In 2013" by Jordan Nishkian

Content warning: child loss

I was tearing open my order of chicken strips to temper their heat when my phone vibrated against the counter. A text notification from my ex, the one who smelled like mango and chlorine, lit up the screen. I wiped my fingers on a one-ply napkin. Its white film was stubborn and clung to the ridges of my thumb.

It was 2013: Spring semester of my sophomore year of college, I had a class schedule that allowed time for a meal in the campus diner, and I finally declared my major—both of them (I still couldn’t choose). It was the year Candy Crush took the world by storm, twin pandas were born in China, and DOMA was overturned.

—hey how are u?

Steam rose from the chicken. I took his bait.

Not bad, you?—

—Great! question for u

—How did u get free birth control?

I squeezed my thumb against my forefinger, rubbing up and down till I felt the film roll into small worms.

Planned Parenthood. You went with me.—

—Yeah… we tried that but they still wanted money

Idk what to tell you. I’m not Google.—

—K don’t be rude. I just don’t want what happened to us to happen again

What happened to us. My teeth grated against the nausea.

I pushed the food away. On the other side of the window, a sea of backpacks bobbed in midday sunshine.

It was 2013: two homemade pressure-cooker bombs detonated at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, sarin gas doused Syrian civilians, and George Zimmerman was found not guilty. I had nightmares that punctuated infrequent sleep with loss and blood, and I called her by two names—both of them. I still couldn’t choose.

Jordan Nishkian is an Armenian-Portuguese writer based in California. Her prose and poetry explore themes of duality and have been featured in national and international publications. She has been awarded the Rollick Magazine Fiction Prize and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best American Short Stories. Jordan is the Editor-in-Chief of Mythos literary magazine and the author of Kindred, a novella.

"The Last Night You Went Outside" by Wendy BooydeGraaff

You’ve always been a sleepwalker. I’d wake nights, the moon shining on our bed, on the rumpled indent where you were when I closed my eyes and leaned my head on your shoulder. At first, I’d get up, find you brushing your teeth in the kitchen, or packing a plastic bag in the living room: books, candles, playing card packets breaking through the thin grocery store logo. I’d discovered if I said anything, you’d grow agitated, you’d shake and become stiff in your refusal. Once, you hit me across the forehead when your arms swung wildly to grab back the wastebasket you were drinking from. The purple-yellow bruise from the watch you wore lasted days. I bought that cakey makeup to cover it up, though the social worker still came to our place, asked me uncomfortable questions. Why hasn’t he come back now, when I need him?

I began to ignore your nighttime travels. I’d lock my desk and hide the key. Everything else you’d put back in place when you awoke at noon. There’d be a few hours of normalcy in the evening and then we’d accidentally fall asleep. I’d stay in bed, sleep through whatever it was you did—you’d never remember, you were asleep. The rift between us grew. You were always leaving. You didn’t mean to, you said. How could I blame you, you said. How could I not? I said. You left. You kept leaving. Subconscious leaving is worse than physical. You didn’t understand me and I didn’t understand you.

The full moon came again, woke me up. How had I not heard the dead bolt unlock, the creak the door makes after the suction sound upon opening. I stood in the shadowed doorway, you stood in the beam on the sidewalk, looking down, fiddling. Then you lifted your arms straight up. I didn’t see how or where you went. You were gone. The beam was gone. I walked to the spot I had last seen you, crunched something under my feet. Your watch, the face splintered with embedded sidewalk grit. I carried it to our room, put it on the nightstand where it had never been because it was always on your arm. I slept on my side of the bed, expecting you back by morning, but the watch stayed there in its new place, as did you.

Wendy BooydeGraaff's short fiction, poems, and essays have been included in Stanchion, Slag Glass City, CutLeaf, Ninth Letter online, and elsewhere. Born and raised in Ontario, Canada, she now lives in Michigan, United States.