She's Too Pretty to Burn

by Wendy Heard

“Why are you apologizing when you didn’t do anything wrong? That’s something we teach girls to do—always apologize, never be a burden. You have a right to take up space.”

I placed my hand on the back of her tangled, sea-wet head. She was so many layers. One layer was sweet and shy. The next layer was dark and unpredictable. Under that, a layer of kindness and softness, and under that, a layer of fierce dominance. She was the ocean, with its riptides and its soft, clean breeze and its beauty and its chilling, shark-filled depths. “I could fall in love with you,” I realized aloud.