Such Sharp Teeth

by Rachel Harrison

It might be the only defining quality of my hometown. Persistent mist.

I run. I take off into the mist. I’m a runner but this is different. Running for your life is different. It sucks.

It looms above me, the moon providing a direct spotlight, a wraithlike glow. Honestly, I could do without it. Fuck you, moon. I don’t need my death by large inbred animal to have good lighting. Dark would be fine. Preferable.

Seth closes his eyes, something he often does when Scarlett and I are being ourselves. It’s a technique he’s developed over the years we’ve known him. He closes his eyes and takes a moment to fortify himself against our collective bullshit.

I can feel it. The damage is there, but it’s ghost damage, haunting my body like it’s a goddamn Victorian manor.

No one can see it but me. No one knows it’s there except for me.

What I want is to enjoy my chai latte without reliving my suffering.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “That this happened to you. I’m sorry.” It’s too direct. It unleashes something inside me. I’m in danger of tears.

It’s a beautiful sky. It’s the sky that I grew up under, that I must have taken for granted. One of the few redeeming features of this place that I swore I’d never come back to.

I always hated this small-town-grapevine nonsense. That’s something I love about the city. The anonymity. No one knows who you are, and no one gives a shit about your business. It’s a beautiful thing.

I could make sandwiches, or salads, if you prefer.” “I don’t prefer salad, no,” Scarlett says, helping herself to a scone.

I’m sitting here all casual as repulsive silver goo spills from me. Maybe I am a Halloween decoration.

“Are you feeling all right?” she asks, setting the coffee down in front of me. It’s in a giant white mug shaped like a ghost. It’s got two black eyes and a gaping black mouth painted on it.

“Boo,” I tell it, before taking a sip.

Was I bitten by a fucking werewolf? A quick Google search confirms it was a full moon that night. I let out an accidental gasp.

And I feel certain I’m about to vomit in this Party City.

“We live in a society that wants us to be ashamed of our bodies. It’s hard not to internalize that.”

I feel like if I say anything bad about my pregnancy, suddenly I’m Casey Anthony.” “That’s crazy,” I say. “You’re way prettier.”

“We always want to save the monsters, don’t we? And it never works out,”

I’m being tragically uncool. It’s kind of amazing how uncool I’m being, considering I’m actually pretty fucking cool.

I had never felt so young, but I knew I would never be young again.

At the time, I viewed these fun, easy conversations as standard, unextraordinary. When you’re young, you’re oblivious to what is rare because you don’t have enough experience to identify it. A diamond is just a rock until you hold it up to the light.

My eyes close, and it’s here. The transcendent knowledge that nothing can touch me. That I’m not in danger, because I am danger.

My whole life will be different. And I’m not going to look the same. I know that’s shallow. But it’s like I’m not allowed to grieve my body. I’m meant to be, like, ‘This is magical. I’m a mother now, so nothing about me matters anymore.’ I don’t know. Maybe that’s terrible and selfish. Maybe I’m a monster.”

Two months ago, I was probably having cocktails with friends at the Standard, or seeing a film at the Angelika, or having dinner with coworkers at some buzzy new restaurant in the Village, or hooking up with an aspiring filmmaker in a Bushwick dive, or role-playing with a divorced Park Slope dad in his sparse studio apartment, reveling in his gratitude. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says as he kisses along my clavicle, one hand loose around my neck and the other moving up my thigh. “You’re so beautiful.” But I need him to love me ugly.

“It’s not your problem. It’s mine.” “You’re my sister. How is it not my problem?” “Because it doesn’t happen to you,” I say. It comes out meaner than I intend it to.

I let her cry on the other side of the couch. I don’t comfort her because I shouldn’t have to comfort her. It’s my bad thing. My rotten thing. My burden.

Of course this guy doesn’t believe in werewolves, doesn’t think they exist. What I am, what happened to me, in his eyes is fiction. He can’t fathom. He’d need proof. And even if I gave it to him, if I showed him the video, would that be enough?

I open my eyes to the glint of teeth, his grin. This grin suggests he’s ignorant of danger. Suggests he assumes he is stronger. Assumes he is safe. I wonder what that’s like, to assume safety.

Once you tell someone your story, you can’t take it back. I wonder if Mia thinks about it whenever she thinks of me. If, in her mind, I’m inextricable from this ugly experience I shared with her in a rare moment of vulnerability.

It’s a nightmare out there, a great big, terrifying world. How does anyone trust anyone? We have such little control as it is, how does anyone willingly relinquish more on hope and hope alone?

“I’m fucking here, aren’t I?” he says. “I’m standing right here. I’ve been here.” “You’re here now. But I can’t make you stay.”

I forgot. I’m so used to being reminded how ugly a place the world can be, I forgot it could be beautiful, too.

“It was so hard,” she says. “Why does it have to be so hard?” “For us ladies to prove how strong and amazing we are so we can continue to be overlooked for leadership positions and receive less pay.”

sound reigns over the night. This time, it comes from me. It’s all of me. All my rage, all my pain, all my strength, all my love. When I howl, I howl with everything I am, every fiber of me, in every form, every phase. Past, present, future.

There is no me and the wolf. I am the wolf. This body is mine; it belongs to me. I’m here inside it, in control.