Rachel thought her face must be cracking. She hadn’t smiled for over five months and couldn’t recall what it felt like to grin. Now that Jake and Evelyn were dead, the guilt slid right off her shoulders into the pea soup she was stirring along with her first two resolutions.

Marian Brooks has been writing short fiction for the past two years. Her work can be found in Word Riot, The Linnets Wings, River Poets Journal and others.