My Dark Vanessa

by Kate Elizabeth Russell

For me, there’s nothing before him, nothing at all, but I know that’s not the point. This is about him needing something from me.

“First love is so special,” she says. “You’ll never forget it.”

My parents stare straight ahead, their anger and grief palpable enough to taste. I open my mouth to let it all in and swallow it whole, where deep in my belly it turns into blame.

In the wake of the article about the other girls, Browick suspends Strane without pay and opens another investigation.

I haven’t been gaslighted into senselessness.

He looks small.

Not small like a boy, but like an old man, brittle and worn down.

There’s a lingering shot of the humanities building. Then the same photo of Strane and, beneath it, his misspelled name: JACOB STRAIN.

The video ends and I gather the pictures, dump them back into the box. That fucking box. Ordinary girls have shoeboxes of love letters and dried-out corsages; I get a stack of child porn.

It would be like setting myself on fire.