Grandma would absentmindedly leave the cupboard door open and Grandpa gently shut it after her. When he died, Grandma continually had bruises on her forehead, and it is how she’d remember her great love was gone – staring into the bathroom mirror, dazed, tentatively touching her bruised skin – how it hurt.

Elodie A. Roy is based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. Her short stories appear in The Stinging Fly, 3:AM Magazine, Flash Frog, New World Writing, Blink-Ink, Bending Genres, and elsewhere. In 2024, she was shortlisted for the Finchale Award for Short Fiction (New Writing North) and won a scholarship from the Faber Academy. She is currently working on her debut novel, East, an excerpt of which was shortlisted as part of the 2026 Huddersfield Literature Festival’s 20/20 Competition.