Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories

by GennaRose Nethercott

We know how powerful a girl can be.

It’s true—you can’t really be angry with someone without loving them first. Sort of the way that you can’t cook a meal without heating the pan. You have to care to the point that the grease starts spitting up at you in pinpricks, and then, only then, can the anger start.

When I was young, I believed this was magic. Now that I am older, I know it must be a science I do not yet understand—which is only another way to say “magic.”

Maybe this is the difference between want and yearn: Want can be flipped on and off like a fuse. Want can be indulged in or set aside. Yearn is something else. You can hear it in the shape of the word. It sounds like the noise a person might make while lying on their stomach on the rim of a well, and reaching down into it, toward the dark. The little grunt they might emit as they reached and reached down into the belly of the well but never quite caught whatever it was they were reaching for.