For She Is Wrath

by Emily Varga

This was who I would become in front of him. A sweet, beautiful confection. And when he bit into the honeyed sugar, it would be poison filling his mouth.

The problem when someone you loved betrayed you was that you had a lifetime of good memories with them that you had to examine in a different light. What was once a safe place to be—beside him, engulfed in his arms, inhaling the smell of rainstorms and pine—was actually the most dangerous place of all.

My father had been everything to me—a mother when my own was killed, a provider by selling his swords to the emperor he hated when we’d needed the money, a teacher when I’d shown an aptitude for fighting. But what he’d been most of all was a friend. Someone who sat with me in the quiet moments, who laughed with me at breakfast, who gave me advice but never judgment. Crying over the loss of him felt too small.

“How can you ever truly be free if you measure every interaction in terms of what it costs you?”

I pressed my teeth together, trying to ignore the fact that I didn’t hate the way I felt when he got close to me. I didn’t hate the way he looked at me when our eyes met. Like he could consume me. Like he was scheduled for execution and I was his final meal.

A history of women and girls being wronged by men who never had any consequences. Now I would be the consequences. “I choose vengeance. I choose death. And in the end, that’s what you chose too.”

You may have given him forgiveness, but that doesn’t mean you owe him kindness.”