Medusa

by Jessie Burton

And here was another truth: I was lonely and I was angry, and rage and loneliness can end up tasting the same.

But when put together, the ache of loneliness and the bitter soup of boredom are more dangerous than any snake venom.

It’s the hardest thing in the world to explain yourself, to tell your story clearly. We are all of us such complicated creatures, whether we have snakes for hair or not. Who we are, and why we are like that—I do not think there is a soul this side of Mount Olympus who can effortlessly explain the twists and turns their life has taken, why they might prefer a fig cake over a honey one, why they fell in love with that man rather than his friend, why they cry at night, or cry at beauty, or cry for no reason at all. But still. It’s all we can do.

“Well, I think it’s easier being told you’re a handsome boy than it is to be told you’re a beautiful girl. When beauty’s assigned you as a girl, it somehow becomes the essence of your being.

I’d never really experienced anger, but it grew inside me like a gift to myself.

Sometimes, not even folding yourself into the smallest, littlest shape is enough. So you might as well stay the size you’re supposed to be.”

No woman is an island—unless she’s been forced there by a bunch of strangers.

I was growing accustomed to this new sensation of uncomfortable compromises, of living in the gray areas of life, rather than the starker strips of black and white I’d believed in as a child.

I had thought he was my one true hope. But it turned out my one true hope was me.

I’m not lonely. Self-awareness is a great banisher of loneliness.