Galatea

by Madeline Miller

“I’m always this color,” I said. “Because I used to be made of stone.”

But I say this so that you understand what I was up against: that I was worth more to her sick than I was well.

The door closed, and the room swelled around me like a bruise. When she was here, I could pretend it felt small because of her, but when she left the four wood walls seemed to press towards me, like lungs that had breathed in.

He says it’s the goddess’ gift first, and then his own since he was the one who made me from the marble.

Would it not have been easier to marry a girl from the town? I asked. Those sluts, he said, I would not have them.

And that’s when I’m supposed to open my eyes like a dewy fawn, and see him poised over me like the sun, and make a little gasping noise of wonder and gratitude, and then he fucks me.

When I had once asked him how old he meant for me to be, he had said, “A virgin.”

But it does seem foolish that he didn’t think it through, how I could not both live and still be a statue. I have only been born for eleven years, and even I know that.

Everyone looked at me, because I was the most beautiful woman in the town. I don’t say this to boast, because there is nothing in it to boast of. It was nothing I did myself.

“The color is perfect,” he said, “look.” And he held up the mirror so I could see. “You make the rarest canvas, love.”

We fell through the currents and I thought of how the crabs would come for him, climbing over my pale shoulders. The ocean floor was sandy and soft as pillows. I settled into it and slept.