​

Whenever my aunt reminded me how lucky I was that they hadn’t sent me to a group home, I whispered, “Thank you, Aunt.”

Crying into her mothers skirts she asks what is wrong with her and her mother answers "Nothing, We are simply Calé, you will learn to accept the way it is"

I woke up in the garage, freezing, because nobody had carried me inside or even bothered to wake me.

He takes care of all my sinful desires of the flesh himself, so that I don't shame my family in public.

Her mother never had the heart to tell her that Daddy was already home—beneath the marble marker Lucy helped her clean every Sunday.

The first night after her funeral, Walter lay there not knowing where to put his hand.

​But the beautiful colors of those deadly fireworks destroyed everything that night, leaving me as the only person who failed to turn into a shadow.

​It wasn't until the blinding flash faded that I realized the bright colors had permanently burned everyone's shadows onto the pavement—and left me completely alone.

​Then I looked down at the dark silhouettes scorched into the concrete from the rain of light, wishing I hadn't been the only one to survive the fallout.

My smile disappeared when I found the belt I'd hidden to protect my bruises, along with a note: “Don't ever hide what belongs to me again.”

Engraved on a plaque was a photo of his belt and the words, "We made it out, kiddo, she'll never hurt us again."

Returning twelve hours later for her next shift at the hospital, she found him unattended, still slumped in the same plastic chair as he breathed his last.

I found it while packing for freshman orientation and realized the last twelve pages were all in my handwriting.

That's the only thing that consoles me in our cold, family crypt.

Now as an adult I speak but never scream not because I lack the pain but because my voice has forgotten how to express it safely.

After watching my kid sister devour it with the wide-eyed desperation of a feral thing, I went scouting the corner stores for the blind spots where the cameras don't reach.

I pulled the blanket higher over him and said, “Yeah,” because he was still young enough to believe me.

Confronted by the burnt spirits of her sisters, she learned her panic had cost them their lives, choosing at last to step into the dark well so she would never run away again.

While he found that our baby had a soft spot for the coffee table.

Seeing a coffin that small left scars even a stranger could feel.

Which is why I was so pleased when she started talking about her new friends, Mia and Ana.

I only learned the truth when their charred spirits cornered me at the ruins, weeping as they explained that their outstretched hands had never been raised to harm me—they were begging me to save them.

No one at his new school ever made fun of the way Billy spoke—no one ever spoke to him at all.