The Pretty Ones

by Ania Ahlborn

Don’t even think it. If you think it, it may come true.

She had to kill her loneliness before it made her disappear.

A woman who couldn’t have a drink without swallowing the whole bottle. Who couldn’t disagree without screaming at the top of her lungs,

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.

he couldn’t speak, but he could write, and that’s what was important. It was how he’d leave his mark on the world, how the universe would remember he existed.

“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!”

Faye’s mood swings had been swift and terrifying. Sometimes Nell felt that she was falling into the same pattern as her mother,

Perhaps Nell had been born to repeat history. To become a carbon copy of the monster that had spit her out wet and naked unto the world.

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