Everything, she thought, is an accident of where you are.

STEALING HOME BY KAY BONTEMPO 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 78

Two bell peppers, Muenster cheese. Cauliflower, a pack of Newports, Tampax. Martinelli’s apple juice. Paper towels two-ply. English Breakfast tea. Boil-in-a-bag rice, paper clips, ramen noodles. Maybe some ice cream if there was money left over. America’s Choice vanilla, eaten straight from the carton. It wouldn’t be bad.

With an uncomfortable pop, he pulled out of her and lay beside her, breathing hard. It was 11.52pm. She wondered if the Shop’n’Save would even be open.

Lucas was 23, like her, and also graduated from the local college. He had a calm assurance that things would be the way they were forever. In his apartment he had hung the same basketball posters and St Pauli Girl beer sign that had adorned his dorm room. In the corner, a Yeti cooler-fridge hummed, relentlessly content.

She liked him, she thought, in the way that she liked cereal—enjoyed on occasion. Some things changed from week to week, from moment t…