What You Did

by Claire McGowan

Hindsight is deadly. If I’d known then what was already happening, what would so soon engulf us, I might have taken a few more moments to stand there in the sun, and drink in all the things I was about to lose. But I didn’t, and so I left.

We aren’t meant to know what other people think in this level of detail.’

We always think we want to know secrets, but what we forget is that they come with their own weights, heavy as millstones, and if you aren’t careful this weight can crush you.

And how sad, to be so drunk that this kind of thing happened to you. To let it happen, like standing out in a lightning storm, as if no one else had control over what they did to you, not when you were so pretty you were like a walking wound.

But when she went it was – like I didn’t really know where to put myself in the world.

Karen paused. ‘He said it was only one time?’

‘I did it for you.’ ‘What?’ ‘Martha. I helped you.’

Always our responsibility to keep ourselves safe, never the men’s not to hurt us.