Lila-Rose Beckford

Leroy wakes up in a desert turnout, contorted in his truck bed like he tried to hold himself together in his sleep. His head throbs. His mouth tastes like blood. The sun is already climbing. The sky is too clean, too wide. No eyes for miles. The desert has stripped him thin, but that’s the point. It’s burning off the wrong parts, leaving only what his wife will recognize when he goes home.   Athena wakes in a guest bedroom with white plaster walls, glass doors, and a rug that was woven by someone else’s hand. The lovers have the…