We Do What We Do in the Dark

by Michelle Hart

Mallory did not like her name, but when the woman repeated it aloud—Mallory Green—it sounded somehow mellifluous, like it belonged in a storybook.

“No one is sitting around waiting for you to be good.”

the thrill of being found was almost physically painful, and she had to reveal herself right away.

She admired the way the woman shucked off the world.

if she found Mallory even a little worth her time, then Mallory’s existence was truly worthwhile.

Mallory had stopped herself from looking at women with lust, but now the woman wanted just that.

It made Mallory happy to be and be seen naked, to desire and be desired in a way that was only possible in private. The warm, breathy silence and the caul of the comforter made it feel as though they were sealed off from the rest of the world.

Everything good that will happen in my life, she thought, will happen because of this woman.

She envied the careless way in which her peers appeared to live. She felt at once much older than them and much younger.

“If you crack your door open for someone even just a smidge, you can bet that door will be pushed all the way open.”

she’d complained that no one called or visited, but whenever someone did, she appeared not to enjoy the company.

“We do not change that much from who we are as children. Who you are now is who you always have been.”

It was euphoric to be seen that way by someone like him. It was euphoric to be seen at all.”

I think that when you’re miserable, you often do things that extend that misery. There is something pleasing about misery that makes it seem as though time has stopped.”

She felt protected by a bubble of normalcy.

absence made the heart grow fonder and when, if ever, the heart became so fond it had to close that absence’s gap.

art was something created in hiding that was meant to be found by others.

so as love

She was a sad girl, a lonely girl, and, after a lifetime of practice, she had become so good at this that it had become the most appealing thing about her.

“This is what people do. If we didn’t talk about the inconsequential things that annoyed us, no one would talk about anything.”