The Beautiful Ones

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

But desire was not passion and passion was not love.

It was raining hard and he welcomed the cold water sliding under the collar of his shirt because the rain nested in her hair like minuscule jewels, it crowned her in summer glory, and he dearly wanted that desperately lovely girl. Thank heavens then for the rain, which cooled his spirit.

“You are a vicious, mad creature,” he said. She wanted to cry and could not. She wanted to weep for that proud girl who had broken her own heart and tossed it to the dogs, and she wanted to weep for the woman who had been left behind with a gaping hole in her soul. But if she could do it again, she knew she’d still retrace her steps. She was not Antonina Beaulieu, who offered herself like a sacrificial lamb, who gave everything of herself to the world for the world to devour. She was Valérie Véries. She hated herself sometimes for it, but she was Valérie Véries, a Beautiful One, not some weakling nor a halfwit.

I feel her 100% i ache and it hit me harder than expected but for her to put down another being like that is unacceptable

“A few years ago, did she not shove that boy off his horse? I recall he was injured,” Valérie replied.

Valerie you wretched bitch

looked, though Valérie did not feel envious of this youth. She was a half-formed being, a creature with no edges.

The gaslighting, the belittling, the venom and hatred in her words. I don't care what you have been through

“I think she wanted nothing from me,” Hector added, “nothing at all but to let her love me.”

A sea roared inside her and made demands, but she waded it, she bobbed up, took a breath, and opened her eyes to the cold winter morning. Then she rose because the day was there, the world was there, and she wanted to be part of it.

“I doubt the tree complains about the arid seasons and the overwhelming rains as it counts its rings.”