My Dark Vanessa

by Kate Elizabeth Russell

No one had ever understood that dark part of him until I came along.

devoted as a dog, as he takes and takes and takes.

hours spent rocking in the hammock with Fiona Apple in my ears make me feel better than happy.

I’m always scrambling, always on the brink of falling behind.

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.

I scan the room, checking each head of long blond hair for Taylor Birch,

Why

In big white letters across the legs: Lolita.

He is Humbert, and I am Dolores.

I’m willing to let the world demonize me, too.

“People will risk everything for a little bit of something beautiful,”

“I kind of feel like this whole thing is destiny.”

I wonder if he really believes that. He touched me first, said he wanted to kiss me, told me he loved me. Every first step was taken by him. I don’t feel forced, and I know I have the power to say no, but that isn’t the same as being in charge. But maybe he has to believe that. Maybe there’s a whole list of things he has to believe. * * *

the vulnerability of someone so big handling something so delicate, trying their best to be careful and kind.

I want to tell him I’m tired, to roll over and never look at the thing ever again, but that would be selfish.

It would be cruel for me to counter that with disgust. It doesn’t matter that my skin crawls from touching him. It doesn’t matter. It’s fine.

I start to tear up, but he doesn’t stop, just says I’m doing great as he keeps trying to get it in. He tells me to breathe in and out, and when I exhale, he thrusts hard and pushes a little farther inside. I start crying, really crying—still, he doesn’t stop.

I gauge the distance between “fuck” and “made love.”

and I understand then what people probably mean when they say that stuff about two becoming one.

I know he wants the truth and that I should tell him I didn’t like being woken up by him hard and practically pushing into me. That I wasn’t ready to have sex this way. That it felt forced. But I’m not brave enough to say any of this—not even that I feel sick to my stomach when I think about him guiding my hand to his penis and don’t understand why he didn’t stop when I started to cry. That the thought I want to go home ran through my head the entire time we first did it. “I feel fine,” I say.

The fear feels unfounded and vaguely performative,

He used me again.

I’m not sure if sex created the canyon or if it’s been there all along

“Yes, but the state doesn’t like parents who let their child run around with a deviant. Because that’s what they would brand me as, a so-called sex offender. After they arrested me, their next step would be to make you a ward of the state. You’d be shipped off to some hellhole—a group home of kids fresh out of juvie who would do god knows what to you. Your whole future would be out of your hands. You wouldn’t make it to college if that happened. You probably wouldn’t even graduate high school. You may not believe me, Vanessa, but you have no idea how cruel these systems can be. Give them a chance and they’ll do everything in their power to ruin both our lives—”

Manipulation

he’ll probably ruin your life.” I ignore how cleanly his words cut and say it’s worth the risk. I wonder how I sound to him, delusional, brave, or both. Jesse shakes his head.

I would probably let him tear me apart. I’d let him do anything.

Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. He’s like Humbert Humbert, assigning mythical significance to certain ages. I ask, “Don’t you mean nine to fourteen?” I mean it in a teasing way, figure he’ll understand the reference, but he looks at me like I’ve accused him of something horrible.

I leave him the one of me on my bed. That’s the one he really cares about anyway.

Strane reaches for me as he drives, his fingers tracing my knee. He steals glances away from the road to check my face. He wants to make sure I like what he’s doing. Does that feel good? Does that make me happy? My eyelids flutter as his hand moves up my thigh. He lives to please me. Even if we end up apart, right now, he worships me—his dark Vanessa. That should be enough. I’m lucky to have this, to be so loved.

Somehow I sensed what was coming for me even then. Really, though, what girl doesn’t? It looms over you, that threat of violence. They drill the danger into your head until it starts to feel inevitable. You grow up wondering when it’s finally going to happen.

I’ve never understood anything about her, no matter how hard I try. A few years ago I figured out where she worked, the neighborhood she lived in. Based on an Instagram of the view from her kitchen window, I figured out her exact building. I never stalked her, not exactly; the closest I ever let myself get was walking by her work, passing the building around lunchtime, checking each coming and going blond head. But when wasn’t I checking for her, scanning faces in restaurants and coffee shops, supermarkets and corner stores? I imagined her sometimes behind me as I walked the city. The thought of her watching made my body buzz, the same feeling I’d get when I imagined Strane’s eyes on me.

“He was a grown man and you were fifteen,” she says. “What could you have possibly done to torture him?”

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

I’m shocked at how smoothly the lie comes out of me,

“I just really need it to be a love story. You know? I really, really need it to be that.” “I know,” she says. “Because if it isn’t a love story, then what is it?” I look to her glassy eyes, her face of wide-open empathy. “It’s my life,” I say. “This has been my whole life.” She stands over me as I say I’m sad, I’m so sad, small, simple words, the only ones that make sense as I clutch my chest like a child and point to where it hurts.

“Vanessa, you knew what that man did to this other girl and you made me feel like an idiot when I mentioned it to you. Then you come in here, telling me that he’s harassing you, hurting you. What did you expect?”

to be a vessel they empty themselves into.

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