The Thief

Ebbing had perfect fetal recall.

The Kiss
By Marjorie Celona

“Tell me what man would drive all that way if there wasn’t something waiting.”

Outside, People Were Crying, Or They Weren’t
By Billy-Ray Belcourt

Is that bizarre? he asked. That such a brief experience of love was too much?

Time in NYC
By Amos Barshad

He had Alex now, he thought. He wouldn’t feel those old pangs. But the loneliness greeted him like a—well, not so much like an old friend. But. You know. Like loneliness.

Bugsy
By Rebekah Frumkin

The videos were different from anything I’d ever seen. Rope, leather, buckles, straitjackets, Lycra, latex, gas masks, ball gags. The women had ideas and Vanessa let them act the ideas out.

The Hazards of Carpooling
By Ainslie Hogarth

This was a real friend. Like old times—better times. When your chip bags spilled over and your idols reeked and all your friends tried to kill you.

ADMN
By José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço

Fate gives the enigmatic-yet-still-relatable protagonist the good partnering fortune she deserves.

You Shouldn’t Be Here
By Victoria Hetherington

I see now that I’m synecdochic for every institution she’s felt pinched by, every older person she’s felt used by. She wants to summon what little power she has left and ruin.

Supporting Details
By Bryan Washington

There was, I thought, a type of man who’d frequent a bathhouse. This turned out to be ignorance.

From How Deep Was That Sound?
By Lisan Jutras

In the middle of the night, the train makes one of many stops in a small town whose name appears written in a dream alphabet.