If I Was Your Girl

by Meredith Russo

“Anything, anyone, is better than a dead son.”

I wondered if a boy like him could ever understand what it was like to be me. To know what it was like to view high school as something you needed to survive. Because that was all it was to me, a series of days to get through, boxes on a calendar to be crossed off. I had come to Lambertville with a plan: I would keep my head down and keep quiet. I would graduate. I would go to college as far from the South as I could. I would live.

felt basically the same way in high school as well. even though i only suffered from depression, i believed that running away was the best thing for me

I wondered if joy could ever be felt by itself without being tainted with fear and confusion, or if some level of misery was a universal constant, like the speed of light.

I think, as humans, we're more complex than we think we are.

it was hard to place too much hope in a God so many people said hated me.

“You can have anything,” she said, “once you admit you deserve it.”

Being a girl in this world means being afraid. That fear’ll keep you safe. It’ll keep you alive.”

I wonder sometimes if we, as women, would be able to flourish and grow as extraordinary people if we weren't saddled with the stresses of just being a woman.