How to Be Eaten

by Maria Adelmann

“Just because you agree to something doesn’t mean you aren’t being taken advantage of,”

“Tragedy isn’t capital,” says Gretel. “It doesn’t buy you anything. It doesn’t automatically make you a better person. And it certainly doesn’t make people fall in love with you.”

“Maybe don’t even be out there, on the street, not if it’s dark, not if you’re alone, not if you’re a kid, not if you’re a woman, not without a rape whistle around your neck, not without pepper spray clutched in your hand, not, anyway, if you’re wearing that outfit.”

Some people stay together forever whether they should be together or not. Some people stay together for reasons more practical than love.

You can’t change the past, but it’s infinitely reframeable. You can tell the same story over and over a hundred different ways, and every version is a little right and every version is a little wrong.