One of best things about reading short stories and novels is that we get to spend time with people we wouldn’t actually want to know. This applies to out-and-out villains, of course, but it also applies to jerks, narcissists, bigots, whiners, chronic interrupters, what have you. Spending time with such types via the written word is great not only because we get to observe them without having to be in the same room with them, but also because we get a chance to be in their heads for a little while and better understand what it’s like to be them. The feeling may only last for as long as your eyes are moving across the page, but there it is: empathy, no strings attached.

Our new issue takes us into the heads of two different characters—Rhoda and Tony—and I’m guessing you might not want to be besties with one of them. You will, however, be on intimate terms with both of them by the last sentence, and I wager you’ll see a little of yourself somewhere along the way. Mix longing with possessiveness, desire with performance anxiety, second-guessing with secret-keeping, skinny-dipping with fast driving, and project it all onto a backdrop of America in the early days of the Reagan administration, and you’ve got “Are You Mine and No One Else’s?” by emerging writer Danny Lorberbaum.

The goal of One Story, first and foremost, is to put great short stories into readers’ hands. Along the way, we often make readers aware of writers they might not yet have come across. I’m confident Danny Lorberbaum is at the beginning of a vast and varied career, and I’m thrilled to be sending you “Are You Mine and No One Else’s?”—a story I find as charming as it is unsettling. To read our Q&A with the author (and to hear about the news story that caused seven-year-old Danny to reassess the world), please visit our website.