Listen for the Lie

by Amy Tintera

Dad’s so good at that Texas thing where you act polite to people’s face and then talk shit behind their back.

Would people say she had a temper if she was a man? They’d say she stood up for herself when it was needed.

Savvy’s story is being filtered through him. Through everyone he’s interviewed who has sanded off the edges of the real girl to present the world with a perfect victim.

I should have just cried. Taken the hits and crawled away to show my scars. I should have been a better victim. The truth doesn’t matter if you fight back.

I’ve always admired the way kids unabashedly stare at you. They don’t care whether you’re uncomfortable.

“That’s what you get for moving back to your hometown. Eventually, you end up becoming friends with the former prom queen cheerleader.”

I wasn’t here physically, but in a way, I’ve spent every day of the last five years here. Other people moved on with their lives.

The only thing men ever protected me from was happiness.”

people hate that quality in a young woman, don’t they? They don’t know what to do with a girl who isn’t looking for their approval.

Mom is, as always, dedicated to protecting the men in her life above all else.

I don’t appreciate them turning me into the victim of this story. Savvy’s the victim. She was buffed and polished after her death and turned into the perfect victim I could never be. Let’s leave it that way.

People don’t believe women who fight back. When a man lashes out, people say he’s lost control of his temper or made a terrible mistake. When a woman does it, she’s a psychopath.

The girl they’re talking about on that podcast bears little resemblance to the actual woman. She wasn’t actually very nice.” I say nothing to that, because it’s true. Savvy was often kind, but she often wasn’t. Certainly not in high school.

He drove you to the brink of your sanity and then blamed you for doing what you had to do to survive. All of this is his fault.”

I didn’t want to be the girl trapped in a marriage because I was too scared to leave, too scared of what other people would think of me if I didn’t have a shiny, enviable life.