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.

“You know I’d follow you anywhere, Dani.”

Crying over the loss of him felt too small.

“You know, you don’t have to pay someone back if they help you. Not everything is a transaction.”

“The most frightened people are the ones that do the frightening.

Putting on a pretty outfit doesn’t mean we can’t slit your throat.”

“Sometimes it is those we trust the most who will betray us,”

“I would read you like a novel. From cover to cover, learning everything about you.” He tilted his head. “Leisurely, only taking me out when you felt like it?” I snorted. “Is that how you read your novels, Mazin? How uninspiring. No, I mean in a fierce frenzy, by candlelight, devouring you until I finished every page and committed it to memory, and then I’d flip right back to the front and start again from the beginning.”

A history of women and girls being wronged by men who never had any consequences.

“You telling me not to focus on all this is like saying to ignore the sun on a hot day. It’s all around us.”

Humans are so controlled by their past. It dictates everything you do.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t know you? I’d know you with any face. Any skin. Any hair. A thousand djinn could disguise you from me and I’d still be able to find you just by the sound of your breath.”