We Do What We Do in the Dark

by Michelle Hart

Many things she did seemed dramatic: When she spoke or ate, she obscured her mouth with the back of her hand. When she read, she sometimes shut the book and bit into its jacket. When she watched shows on her laptop, she blinked rapidly and forcefully as if she was wincing, or willing something into happening like Barbara Eden in I Dream of Jeannie.

There is room enough for you here.

“No one is thinking of you that way,” said the woman. “No one is sitting around waiting for you to be good.”

To be free of responsibility and expectation meant she could live her life the way she wanted to.

“I want you to do well in life. You’re smart and you have a wonderful laugh. When you laugh, I want to laugh, too.”

To have her wants understood without articulating them herself, and to have those desires be accepted and even encouraged, made Mallory feel bold enough to place her lips on the woman’s.

The best part of having nothing, Mallory thought, was that it couldn’t be lost.

She wanted to ask her mother what it was like to lose a sister, to fall in love. She wanted to ask her mother lots of things.

“Shame and pride often feel like the same thing. You begin to want to protect even the most embarrassing parts of your life.”

“Men are incapable of being gallant.”

That she had the ability to wound meant she was important, but this importance came with a responsibility that discomfited her.

“You and I,” she said, “we do what we do in the dark and then we deal with it all alone.” She puckered her lips and blew onto her nails. “That’s how I know you won’t tell anyone about us. If you did, whatever this is would no longer be just yours.”

She glanced frequently at the ocean with the feeling that there was a lot of life before her.

she often wanted to be alone, but if she couldn’t be alone, then she wanted to be the center of attention, which felt like a way to exert control over her aloneness.

What did it matter, Mallory wondered now, whether a woman was pretty or funny? She was fucked either way.

Loneliness caught in Mallory’s throat like the onset of a cold.

Mallory imagined that the sky itself was

watching over her. The stars appeared to her like eyes, as if she specifically was now worthy of the universe’s attention and care.

No one should use another person to get over their own loneliness.”

I think this is very symbolic of how the woman never viewed Mallory in a serious way. To Mallory, the woman was so much older and wiser and the affair was everything. The woman brushes Mallory off…. Forgetting about the coffee date…. “You’re so funny.” It’s almost condescending. So hurtful.

“I’ve made this for you before?” Mallory listened to the sauce’s fizzle. She watched the peppers wilt in the heat. “You made it the first time I went to your house.”

Again, I feel horrible for Mallory.

“I’m afraid of being alone and afraid that is the only way I know how to be.”