Head Like a Hole

by Andrew Van Wey

Or who she’d become after two years of art school and a mind like a scratched record.

It was different for guys. Sure, they had reputations, but they could shed them like old clothes over the summer and become something new. Women had labels that stuck.

“A car is a tool as well as a weapon. Every driver needs to respect that.”

Time doesn’t heal everything but our scars give us strength.

Someone who once painted with passion and could now hardly finish a sketch?

I weep for the girl who was so excited going to art school

The lack of control, the confusion, the contagious hysteria. A group only had the IQ of its dumbest member.

It had felt like a parade of tragedies that year. And then, like all news, it faded and the world moved on.

It was okay, she told herself. In life, friends came and went. But it didn’t fill the hole they left. Would she ever know anyone as deeply as those she grew into adulthood with?