A Flicker in the Dark

by Stacy Willingham

And in that moment, the moment of the crash, it made me realize that monsters don’t hide in the woods; they aren’t shadows in the trees or invisible things lurking in darkened corners. No, the real monsters move in plain sight.

There are so many subtle ways we women subconsciously protect ourselves throughout the day; protect ourselves from shadows, from unseen predators. From cautionary tales and urban legends. So subtle, in fact, that we hardly even realize we’re doing them.

Society would have us think it’s the other way around—that the man in the family takes control, the woman cries silently—but it’s not. And I know why.

“It wasn’t my mother’s job to notice every red flag that my father exhibited,” I said. “Oftentimes, there are no blatant warning signs until it’s too late.

But on the other hand, Lena had taught me that it’s also possible to love someone and lose them for no reason at all. To find a perfectly good person and wake up one morning to learn that they’re gone without a trace, either by force or by will. What if I did find someone, someone good, and he was taken from me, too? Wouldn’t it just be easier to go through life alone? So that’s what I had done, for years. I had been alone.

because they both understand the inherent danger of existing as a woman.

It’s nothing more than my own memories, my own unresolved demons, bubbling to the surface. There’s nothing he could do to fix the problem, nothing he could say to me that hasn’t been said before. That’s not what I need right now. I just need someone to listen.

They’re good people, but I’m sure they talk about us when we’re not around. Judge us for abandoning our mother, leaving her fate in the hands of strangers. But what they don’t understand is that she abandoned us, too.

When people get hurt physically, you can see it in the bruises and the scars, but when they’re hurt emotionally, mentally, it runs deeper than that. You can see every sleepless night in the reflection of their eyes; you can see every tear stained into their cheeks, every bout of anger etched into the creases in their foreheads. The thirst for blood cracking the skin on their lips.

forty percent of people who are abused as children will go on to become abusers themselves. It doesn’t happen to everyone, but it happens. It’s cyclical. It’s about power, control—or rather, the lack of control. It’s about taking it back and claiming it as your own.

Because when it’s silent, you can hear everything. Muffled breaths in the distance,

Suddenly, more than exhausted, I feel lonely.

“You let me tell you everything and you acted like you didn’t already know.”

Because that’s the thing about danger—it heightens everything. Your heartbeat, your senses, your touch. It’s a desire to feel alive, because it’s impossible to feel anything but alive when you find yourself in its presence, the world becoming cloaked in a shadowy haze, its very existence all the proof you need—that you’re here, you’re breathing.