Us Against You

When people talk about rape, they always do so in the past tense. She “was.” She “suffered.” She “went through.”
But she didn’t go through it, she’s still going through it. She wasn’t raped, she’s still being raped.

Being a mother can be like drying out the foundations of a house or mending a roof: it takes time, sweat, and money, and once it’s done everything looks exactly the same as it did before. It’s not the sort of thing anyone gives you praise for.

Waves are tossed back and forth when the wind comes, but the rocks just take a beating, immovable, waiting for the storm to blow over.

noia is that the only way to prove you’re not paranoid is to be proved right.

the worst thing about para

Richard Theo knows only two ways of getting someone who doesn’t like you to fight on your side regardless: a shared enemy or a shared friend.

Richard Theo knows only two ways of getting someone who doesn’t like you to fight on your side regardless: a shared enemy or a shared friend.

Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang.

That’s the sound of this town, everywhere. Perhaps you understand that only if you live here.

Bangbangbang.

On the hilltop stand two girls, watching the car disappear. They’ll soon be sixteen. One of them is holding a guitar, the other a rifle.

After four hours of silence in the car, when they’re so far from Beartown that they can’t see any forest, Kevin whispers to his mother, “Do you think it’s possible to become a different person?”

She shakes her head, biting her bottom lip, and blinks so hard she can’t see the road in front of her. “No. But it’s possible to become a better person.” Then he holds out a trembling hand. She holds it as if he were three years old, as if he were dangling over the edge of a cliff. She whispers, “I can’t forgive you, Kevin. But I’ll never abandon you.”

“Do you still want kids?” Ana asks.

Maya’s mouth barely opens when she replies. “Don’t know. Do you?”

Ana shrugs her shoulders slightly, halfway between anger and sorrow. “Maybe when I’m old.”

“How old?”

“Dunno. Thirty, maybe.”

Maya is silent for a long time, then asks, “Do you want boys or girls?”

Ana replies as if she’s spent her whole life thinking about this, “Boys.”

“Why?”

“Because the world is kind of shitty toward them sometimes. But it treats us like that nearly all the time.”