My Dark Vanessa

by Kate Elizabeth Russell

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, kissing my forehead. He calls me sensitive. “Like a . . .” He stops and softly laughs. “I was about to say like a little girl. I forget sometimes that’s exactly what you are.”

GUYS I CANNOT. i am putting this book down.

“He’s never talked to you about me?” The wrinkles in her forehead deepen. The look lasts only for a second. If I wasn’t on high alert, I wouldn’t even notice it. “Can’t say that he has,” she says. “That’s surprising,” I say. “He and I are pretty close.”

WHY WOULD U SAY THAT GIRL

It’s strange to know that whenever I remember myself at fifteen, I’ll think of this.

:(((((

Really, I just hate it when he gets angry at me, because that’s when I feel things that probably shouldn’t be there in the first place, shame and fear, a voice urging me to run.

RUN GIRL RUN

To be groomed is to be loved and handled like a precious, delicate thing.

Maybe I wasn’t loved enough. Maybe that lack of love shaped the loneliness he saw in me.

“Vanessa,” she says gently, “you didn’t ask for that. You were just trying to go to school.”

This broke me

It’s my birthday in two days. I’ll be twenty-two. Seven years of my life defined by this. When I look back, I won’t see anything else.

No actually this broke me