The Pretty Ones

by Ania Ahlborn

The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on. —Robert Bloch

Nell had read that letter, unable to shake the strange itch of envy. It was a letter written by someone who had had enough. Someone who had been pushed too far; shoved right over the line of civility and onto a path of blood-soaked freedom. Uninhibited liberation.

That was the thing about Barrett. He hadn’t spoken since he was six years old.

Nell was fairly certain that if Mary Ann ever crossed paths with a better-looking woman, that girl would be found dead in a gutter the next afternoon.

A criminal showing appreciation to her own executioner. A Salem witch filling her own pockets with stones.

“All I’m saying is, if you don’t like the life you have, make the life you want.”

But today, after Linnie’s rejection, their catcalls woke something dormant and ugly deep within her guts.

Maybe their self-confidence, their too-loud laughter, and their compulsion to surround themselves with friends were all to cover up some deep-seated hurt Nell couldn’t begin to understand. Perhaps everyone was broken in their own way.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Leigh!” she’d cried. “It’s like I’m two people. It’s like I have no control over the things I do!”

It wasn’t their home, but sometimes stand-ins were unavoidable.

Sometimes the significance of an act was more important than the person or thing being acted upon.