I don’t want to die. Your mother rocks and repeats it like a mantra. You climb into her bed, press your small body against hers, and feel her heart rage. You’re sure her new friend, the one with the long pinky nail, white dust around her nose, and cheetah print dress, is to blame. You don’t know that your father’s on his honeymoon. All you know is when you and your sister sneak a taste of the powdered sugar on the coffee table, your tongues go numb, and you both go animal too.
You’re sixteen when your mother’s circle of friends grows small, a people, and places kind of small, so when her ex-boyfriend begs her to come over, she begs you to go too. You go because he lives outside the circle. His apartment sterile as a hospital, pacing like he’s been committed. Your mother follows him into the bedroom, a kingdom of animal in his eyes. A man in a pinstriped suit is sitting on the couch eying you with a hand on his pocket. You get up when the bedroom door opens. Pretend not to see the scales and baggies lined up on the dresser, a trigger of weapons across the bed.
Years later, you’re sharing an apartment with your sister, and now it’s her circle that needs to be squared. Her boyfriend is a bull snorting and sniffing his way across town, yours is a hound that bites when he barks. Tonight, you wake to her standing over your bed, SHHHH, there’s someone in the house, she says, eyes feral, teeth gnashing. You get up. Check the closets, the windows, the doors. You tell her no one is here. You tell her she’s safe. Sometimes you wonder, what if your father never strayed.
Karen Crawford lives and writes in the City of Angels. Her work has been included in National Flash Fiction Day Anthology 2024, Okay Donkey, Five South, Heavy Feather Review, 100 Word Story, and elsewhere. She is a Pushcart, and Best of the Net nominee and was longlisted in Wigleaf’s top 50 2023. You can find her on X @KarenCrawford_ and Bluesky @karenc.bsky.social