My Dark Vanessa

by Kate Elizabeth Russell

obsessive women and monstrous men.

Sometimes it feels like he’s waiting for me to move toward him, but I don’t have the courage I had at fifteen, I fear rejection, and besides, he’s not giving me enough,

He didn’t even really hurt anyone, though “hurt” is such a subjective thing. Think of all the thoughtless pain we inflict. A mosquito on your arm; you don’t even hesitate to smack it dead.

When I look back, I won’t see anything else.

“What could we have done? We were just girls.” I know what she means—not that we were helpless by choice, but that the world forced us to be. Who would have believed us, who would have cared?

There must be a point where you’re allowed to be defined by something other than what he did to you.

I watch her walk away, not a rumor but a real person, a woman who used to be a girl. I’m real, too.

I can imagine how it might feel not to be his, not to be him. To feel that maybe I could be good.

I need to give myself the chance to see more of the world without him behind my eyes. I’m already starting to feel the difference. There’s a clearness, a lightness.

She’s still getting used to it, the freedom and space.