A Study in Drowning

by Ava Reid

Time felt both compressed and infinite. It rolled over her, like she was a sunken statue on the seafloor, but it tossed and thrashed her, too, a limp body in the waves.

“You’re so pretty. You really are. You’re the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever seen. Do you know that?” If she said yes, I do, she was a conceited harpy. If she shook her head and rebuffed the compliment, she was falsely modest, playing coy. It was fae-like trickery. There was no answer that wouldn’t damn her.

She was tired, tired of trying so hard for something she didn’t even want.

“How come all the spiders are men?” “Because then it feels more satisfying to squish them,”

It was an eternal feeling, this sense of being unwelcome. No matter where she was, Effy was always afraid she was not wanted.