He stepped aside. “Something’s wrong with you.”

“I could make you eat glass for saying that. You need to be more careful.”

Casey left the house and strolled down the street, whistling as the cool evening air pleasantly caressed her cheeks. An elderly lady came walking up from the opposite direction, one of those crones who stare at anybody and everybody with their talk-to-me eyes. Casey couldn’t imagine being so pathetically reliant on a few words of conversation here and there.

“What’s got you so chipper, dearie?” the lady called.

“The impossible has happened.” Casey beamed as she came to a stop. It was easy; it helped that she’d been acting, in a sense, ever since she was seven years old. “My husband has offered to clean the house. Can you believe it?”

The lady chuckled. “That is quite the event. Let’s hope he does a good job.”

“Oh, I know he will. Have a good evening.”

“And you.”

The lady went on her way. Casey turned, looking at the thinning grey hair on the back of her head. Parts of her scalp were visible under the glaring lamp posts. Casey wondered what sound she’d make if she struck her with a rock, smashing it into her skull; she imagined the vivid blood seeping into the grey, and she smelled it, coppery and welcome.

6

NATALIE

When Scott and I met in university, we both wanted to be writers. His dream was to write historical novels and I was going to pen pulse-pounding thrillers. But then life happened, as it does: he graduated and went on to pursue his PGCE, and I took a job in an office, simply for the money, until the office job claimed more and more of my effort and attention. My writing aspirations began to fade, as aspirations often do: absent-mindedly, without any fanfare.

When I asked him if he thought a writing course would be a good idea, he said, “Nat, you know I’ll always support you.”

But that was a lie.

It was little things at first, the way he’d complain if I stayed up late to work on a story instead of coming to bed with him. “It’s like I don’t even have a wife.” He’d hide my notebook, claiming he didn’t know where it was, but I was careful to always leave it on my desk. Once, I arrived home to find him reading one my stories to his friend, Gary.

I didn’t let them know I was there. Pressing myself against the wall, I listened as Scott made my words sound ridiculous. Or maybe they were ridiculous; it was an early draft. He spoke in a cutting, high-pitched way, mimicking me, and then both of them laughed like crazy.

“I’m telling you, mate,” Scott said. “She spends hours on this crap.”

Another woman might’ve marched in there and yelled at him for being so cruel. But my husband sometimes scared me. It was this look he got in his eyes, cruel, or hungry, like he wanted to hurt me but had so far held back the sadistic desire. I crept away, out the front door, walking to the end of the road before I let the tears come.