Second Life, New Rules

e was the smell of cheap whisk

highlights of some college football game I couldn't care less about. M

ft years ago, taking the kids with her. She told them I

rse from a hospice. Matthew Clark, the golden boy quarterback Sabrina had

should have been mine. The irony was so bitter it made me laugh, a dry,

o the roar

l of popcorn and cheap perfume. I was nineteen again, s

ming parade. The

ed. I flexed my leg, feeling the powerful muscl

a loud, off-key version

trosity of our mascot, a hornet, wobbled precariously. And standing

erfect, the town' s golden girl, my childhood nei

it used to. There was no b

he decades of her cold shoulder, the way she flinched when

ur son that his father was

hornet head tilted. In my f

the

f the way, and let the structure crush

ould call

marry me out of guilt. A li

this