Whisper Network

by Chandler Baker

“Eggshell skull syndrome,” her torts professor had called it in law school. The idea that if you struck a person in the head and it broke their skull, it didn’t matter that the same blow wouldn’t have cracked most other people’s skulls. The injured person’s unexpected frailty wasn’t a valid defense to the seriousness of any injury caused to them.

(Because we knew this logic: we were always supposed to be thankful when anyone thought we were pretty.)

Women walked around the world in constant fear of violence; men’s greatest fear was ridicule.

Our tactic was avoidance, to mark landmines and encourage each other to step around them so that nobody went kaboom.

We tried. Because we’d always wanted the best for each of our friends. We wanted her to dump that loser. We wanted her to stop worrying about losing five pounds. We wanted to tell her she looked great in that dress and that she should definitely buy it. We wanted her to crush the interview. We wanted her to text us when she got home. We wanted her to see what we saw: someone smart and brave and funny and worthy of love and success and peace. We wanted to kill whoever got in her way.

Our legacy would be our words. Shouted out loud. For all to hear. We were done petitioning to be believed. We were finished requesting the benefit of the doubt. We weren’t asking for permission. The floor was ours. Listen.