All the Dangerous Things

by Stacy Willingham

The truth is, people love violence—from a distance, that is. Anyone who disagrees is either in denial or hiding something.

Sometimes, the mind is just stronger than our attempts to override it.

At the time, it reminded me of the stars: how two can collide and fuse into one—bigger, brighter, stronger than before. But what I didn’t know then was that when they collide too fast, they don’t fuse at all. Instead, they explode, evaporating into nothing.

But now, seeing that man—his eyes like peeled grapes as he stared into the darkness; the way he creaked back and forth in his rocking chair, a methodical rhythm, like someone had wound up a key in his back and left him to sway—I understand that there’s something even more unsettling than being alone in the dark. It’s realizing that you’re not really alone at all.

He was like water, pooling his way into my empty spots.

I had come to think of him as a library book, entering my life on rented time. Something that I could enjoy for a few hours, curled up and comfortable, devouring as much of him as possible before our time was up. And because he wasn’t mine, I couldn’t scribble in the margins or write my name on the spine; I couldn’t leave my mark on him in any discernable way.

Every day, my memory of him grows fainter, like a stain disappearing slowly under the pressure of running water, my thumb massaging the fabric.

After all, the violence always comes to us in ways we could never expect: quickly, quietly. Masked as something else. Ben has always known that you don’t have to pull the trigger to get away with murder—sometimes, all you need to do is load the gun and let it go off on its own.