Confessions of an Alleged Good Girl

by Joya Goffney

The sun is sleeping now, and in its absence, we’re left with pink and orange streaks in the sky.

I never had to notice how empty my life was, because Dom filled every corner, every second, every hole. But now that he’s gone, I can feel the gashes in me—the ones left by my old friends, the one left by my sister, and this extra-big hole left in my heart by Dom.

The things we resent about other people, aren’t those always the things we hate most about ourselves?

You are more than what your body can do for him.”

You’ve never even had sex, so why put it on this undeserved pedestal? That gives it way too much power. Just say it.”

“First of all,” I say with an amused grin, “it is not cool. Second of all, I don’t like that you just compared my vagina to a murderous plant.”

Uncle Raven is prideful, but he’s not mean.

I heard her surprise in the silence. I heard how much it hurt her. The last thread between us broke, and that ended up being the last thing I ever said to her.

And just like that, with the emptiness on my finger, the literal weight lifted off my hand, I feel that much freer to make my own decisions. I feel less like I owe my daddy my word, less like I owe Dom my body, and more like I belong to me and only me.

“I think you’re pretty great too. You’re, like, the only person in this town who didn’t look down on me because of what you’d heard about me. You don’t need to change anything for anyone. Not one thing.”

“Coach always said that records are meant to be broken.”

“My body isn’t a prize—some trophy you get after a certain amount of time. You don’t deserve my body, and neither does Reggie—it doesn’t work like that. My body is mine to give whenever I want to whoever I want. My choice to have sex is just that—my choice.

We weren’t perfect. We were never perfect. We were liars and broken and unbalanced. Nothing about us was ever perfect.

When I pull in, the porch light is on. But I can’t see anything in the sky watching over me—not the moon, not the stars.

Somehow, I slept. Despite the fact that sleep would only lead to the morning and the morning would only lead to my life ending, somehow, I found a way to fall.

I’m melting into him, like a chocolate kiss in the sun.

Tonight was a disaster. A perfect, perfect disaster.

“You’re very photogenic,” he says, running a hand through the back of my hair. “It’s just that photos will never do you justice.”