Before She Knew Him

by Peter Swanson

She’d come through foul weather and torrential rain to stand in the sun.

They had a secret, the two of them, and there was no better way to start a friendship than with a secret.

“People are defined by their actions. What they do is who they are.”

“I’m saying that they were going to spread unhappiness—that they were going to make life miserable for people. By subtracting them from the world, I’ve added to the world’s happiness.”

I know what you’re thinking, that I’ve got some savior complex, that I’m going to save all the innocent females of the world from the big bad wolves. I’m not an idiot. I know that’s part of it. My dad was a monster and my mother was his victim, and that’s why I think the way I do. I’ve psychoanalyzed myself far more and far deeper than you or anyone else could. I know what I am.”

“All it’s revealing is my imagination, something entirely removed from reality. I can separate the two, and you can’t. That’s the difference between us.”