“I wish you’d just shut up about it,” Barbara finally shouted.

“As soon as you admit that this time it wasn’t my fault,” Dave countered.

“Okay, it’s not your fault. Are you happy now?”

“Yes.” Having gained her absolution, Dave stopped bickering and turned away.

At the bottom of the hill, there lived an old widow. She was named Mrs. Bottoms. She was extremely lonely because no one from the town ever visited her.

The town social worker, her name was Mrs. Church, decided it would be a good idea to get Mr. Hill to marry Mrs. Bottoms. She concocted a very complicated plan to bring them together.

At his bachelor party, his friends had taunted him that this would be his last night of freedom, that after tonight he’d only be with one woman for the rest of his life, but Wendell didn’t see that as a prison. He would gladly give up all the woman in the world to be with Simone.

“Yes,” he answered, without really thinking.

“You fucking pig.”

Stan may not have liked small talk, but he always enjoyed discussing his own exploits.

“Your husband gave me a choice. I could admit what I’d done or he’d torture me until I did. Neither option seemed very appealing, so I disarmed Tony and shot the both of them and threw them out the window. Their bodies are still laying on the front walk. I’ll take you to see them when we get back.”

Stan didn’t know how to be subtle. But neither did she.

Mandy, on the other hand, was a goody-goody. She never drank alcohol and did her best to avoid late-night parties. In other words, she wasn’t any fun.

Mandy and Jordan couldn’t have been more different. The only reason they knew each other’s names was because Mandy was a tutor for the English department and Jordan was trying desperately not to flunk out.

But thanks to Judge Smalls, they’ve been ordered to marry.

The objects were mostly as she expected, recipes and trinkets meant to give her certain disposable comforts in her new household. But now she had need of one particular item packed away at the bottom: her grandmother’s wand.

“Do you remember the time–” Steve interrupted her before she could finish.

“Of course I do.”

They had met at a similar spot. It had been the threat of death that had first brought them together, the romance of knowing their lives literally hung in the balance that had caused them to fall in love, the thought that overcoming danger together was the perfect way to start a relationship.

Hannah looked at her husband as the ground fast approached and sighed at the memory.

Words only came painfully, weighed down with uncertainty and despair. The forced cohabitation doomed us to this daily ritual at least twice a day, and though our encounters were always brief, a few minutes at most, the memories of them lingered.

Something about scissors fascinates me. They give me the irresistible urge to stab something, anything. My wrist, your wrist, the baby’s head. I can’t help myself. I mean, I can, because I’ve never stabbed anything, other than the pumpkin a few Halloweens back. But I can’t help the urge.

Sometimes I dream about scissors.

We don’t keep any scissors in the house. My wife says they are dangerous to have lying around, especially with the baby. I don’t know why she’s so paranoid all the time.