Water for Elephants

by Sara Gruen

All I can do is put in time waiting for the inevitable, observing as the ghosts of my past rattle around my vacuous present. They crash and bang and make themselves at home, mostly because there’s no competition. I’ve stopped fighting them. They’re crashing and banging around in there now. Make yourselves at home, boys. Stay awhile. Oh, sorry—I see you already have.

Damn ghosts.

I don’t know anymore. I’m so used to being scolded and herded and managed and handled that I’m no longer sure how to react when someone treats me like a real person.

I want her to melt into me, like butter on toast. I want to absorb her and walk around for the rest of my days with her encased in my skin.

With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.