My Dark Vanessa

by Kate Elizabeth Russell

It’s both creepy and out of my control, this ability I have to notice so much about other people when I’m positive no one notices anything at all about me.

start to realize the point isn’t really whether I like the books; it’s more about him giving me different lenses to see myself through.

The nine other students pack up their things and leave the classroom to carry on with their lives, to practices and rehearsals and club meetings. I leave the room, too, but I’m not part of them. They’re the same, but I’m changed. I’m unhuman now. Untethered. While they walk across campus, earthbound and ordinary, I soar, trailing a maple-red comet tail. I’m no longer myself; I am no one. I’m a red balloon caught in the boughs of a tree. I’m nothing at all.

even after how much she hurt him and how much he hurt her. His feelings for her are endless and out of his control. How can they not be, when the whole world demonizes him for them? If he were able to stop loving her, he would. His life would be so much easier if he left her alone.

feel a muted confusion, like I’m watching a movie with a disorienting plot. Truly, everything feels like a simulation, unreal. I have no choice but to pretend I’m the same as ever, but a canyon surrounds me now, sets me apart. I’m not sure if sex created the canyon or if it’s been there all along and Strane finally made me see it. Strane says it’s the latter. He says he sensed my difference as soon as he laid eyes on me.

Men who will never make you wait; men who are starved and grateful for scraps of attention, who fall in love so hard they throw themselves at your feet.

HAHAHA

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