Fallout (Crank 3)

for a while longer yet,

deception.

Summer

KRISTINA IS OUT OF EXCUSES

I know that’s what Grandpa

Scott would say, and the rest

of us would no doubt agree.

My mom has said enough.

I look

to my rig

ht, where Leigh

sits, drop-jawed, gawking

at her

sister, as if she’s never seen

her before. On my left, Autumn

seems lost in some obscure

distraction. Wonder where

her thoughts have wandered.

And I

find

in the tears that drop from

my mother’s eyes into puddles

on her dinner plate,

doubt.

A growing desire to escape

the confines of this house,

no longer her home, by

her own design. And in that,

loneliness.

Hunter, Autumn, Summer