We Do What We Do in the Dark

by Michelle Hart

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

One of her favorite places she had visited, she told Mallory, was Cinque Terre,

TASTEEEE

It felt as though the earth itself knew about their affair, but no one living on it did.

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

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

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

“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.”

There is something pleasing about misery that makes it seem as though time has stopped.”

“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.”

Because she saw herself as a girl only a mother could love, 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.

It was so unlike the kiss she shared with Hannah earlier that summer, the lightness of it replaced with a sudden and forceful hunger that felt as though it flattened her; she couldn’t dwell on her own pleasure, or the lack of it, since his was so present.

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

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

“I feel kind of bad, guilty even. No one should use another person to get over their own loneliness.” “Isn’t that what we all do?”

She wanted the woman to be happy; her hopes for her own happiness seemed inextricably linked to the woman’s.

Despite being a smoker, she had a forty-five-minute skincare routine.

so true queen

Mallory had once thought her life could be clearly split between before and after the affair with the woman, but she began to think that there was no before or after; the arc of their lives had forever bent toward each other, the way trees on opposite sides of the road touched and entangled their leaves.

Something caged inside her had cried out to the woman, to Hannah and Mrs. Allard, I will keep your secrets, but the secrets she carried felt heavier and heavier every day, and she wasn’t sure she could handle any more weight.

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