A Study in Drowning

by Ava Reid

The solitude that had once comforted her had become an enormous empty space where so many bad things could happen. She did not know what, exactly—it was only a roiling, imprecise dread. The silence was a span of time before inevitable disaster, like watching a glass teeter farther toward the edge of a table, anticipating the moment it would tip and shatter. She did not entirely understand why the things that had once been familiar now felt hostile and strange.

Rhia was a Southerner, and often spoke with disdain about her tiny hometown and its deeply religious people.

Treacherous but beautiful.

Fear could make a believer of anybody.

I’ll fight for you, Effy. I promise.”

Effy Effy Effy Effy Effy.

But even blurry you’re so beautiful.”

“I know. It’s not the most original argument, and I’m hardly the first scholar to make it—that the ephemerality of things is what gives them meaning. That things are only beautiful because they don’t last. Full moons, flowers in bloom, you. But if any of that is evidence, I think it must be true.”