All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

by Bryn Greenwood

Mr. Arsenikos said if you knew the constellations you would never get lost. You could always find your way home.

That’s the problem with the Christmas story: most of the roles are for boys. The only girl is there because men can’t have babies.

Deputy Vogel told me to call him if I ever needed something. It’s what they taught in school, too. They said the police were there to help you, but I don’t think they knew what happened when the police came to your house. Cops ruin everything. They kick in the front door, throw people on the floor and handcuff them. They break things and steal things. They lock you in a patrol car, make you spend all night in the police station wearing your nightgown, and then send you home with strangers. That’s why I would never call Deputy Vogel, no matter how much Mama and Liam fought. I’d thrown away the paper with his number as soon as he gave it to me, because I remembered what happened the last time the police came to our house.

I didn’t want to enjoy the way the wind spun around me and pulled at my dress. It soothed me and I didn’t want to be soothed.

I liked how she explained everything. Mama never explained anything. She just made rules and that was that.

After that my words were hot enough to burn my tongue, but I couldn’t swallow them, either. They stayed in my throat, so that I almost couldn’t breathe.

I could have told him there was no sense in rushing toward being dead. It would find you soon enough, and before it did there were pleasures to make your heart hurt less.

God also didn’t want you to “pollute yourself.” Touching yourself for pleasure wasn’t what God designed your temple for, according to Charlotte. Either God was stupid or Charlotte was confused, because my temple was clearly designed for that.

Hahaha

He pulled my hand away, and his soft eyes said everything was broken.

She’d gone from destroyed to driven overnight,

In another three hundred thousand years, Voyager 2 might reach as far as the star Sirius, but it would never come home. That was how I felt, as I walked down the driveway to my car. I was moving forward into space, but I would never come home again.