She was never the kind of sister their father thought she was.

A GOOD SISTER BY WENDY TATLONGHARI BURG 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 95

“Has she talked to you at all?” Her father often assumed his children were conspiring against him, or protecting each other in some way, which to Nina was absurd. “Why would Pia talk to me about any of it?” she asked, tone dry, expression bored.  “You’re her sister,” he said.

Some days Cole could go for hours forgetting Collette.     

NO SMOEKING BY S LEE BENNETT 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 95

She did not exist in his head any more. Nor had she for years. The name did not anger him as it once did, but it still saddened him. And more than anything confused him. Collette was no longer a person he recognized himself to be.

It would be like old times.

REAL LOVE BY LINDSAY SMITH 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 95

I thought if I came back, kept coming back, I thought that maybe, I was just dreaming I know, but I thought maybe you would come back too, some time, and it would be like old times.

We all make meaning 

in the ways we need to. 

He couldn’t say whether he’d done the right thing or not. He supposed it didn’t matter. We all make meaning in the ways we need to. Whatever he told the girl, she would fold it into a narrative that worked until it didn’t any more, and then she’d be grown up. It happened to everyone. 

POTHOLE GOBLINS BY GREG NOVEMBER 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 95

He had to be brave.

THE LAST SURGERY BY AIDA BODE 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 95

At the door of the operating room three men in hoods stood holding Kalashnikovs. “Doctor, you know we have nothing against you,” one of them said.