Mindy McGinnis

so language is the least of my sins

—the female of the species is more deadly than the male.”

“Except humans,” the other girl volunteering says

Anger makes you tired, but guilt keeps you from falling asleep

Sometimes I forget for one second and it hurts.

It’s a different kind of pain than the constant, the weight that hangs from my heart. It swings from twine embedded so deeply that my aorta has grown around it. Blood pulses past rope in the chambers of my heart, dragging away tiny fibers until my whole body is suffused and pain is all I am and ever can be.

But sometimes it swings just right and there’s a moment of suspension when I can’t feel it. The rope goes slack and the laws of physics give me one second of relief. I can laugh and smile and feel something else. But those same laws undo me, and when it swings back there’s a sharp tug on my heart to remind me that I forgot.

Then a man took her.

A man took her before I learned any of these things. He took her and kept her for a while, put things inside of her. Of course the obvious thing, but also some others, like he was curious if they’d fit. Then he got bored. Then he got creative.

Then my sister was gone and I thought: I understand about boys now

She usually kept chattering until I’d raise my eyes and say, “I’m trying to read,” to which she’d mock sympathy and say, “Oh, honey, I thought you knew how. This is so sad

There are parts of yourself that you hate; parts that you know other people wouldn’t understand.

“Dude,” Park says to me, “your girlfriend is, like . . . fucking scary. But also totally awesome. Is it okay if I’m half in love with her right now?”

But some men should be marked. I’m fit for that task.

And I don’t feel bad.

“Honey, you just don’t. You can love someone down to their core and they can love you right back just as hard, and if you traded diaries you’d learn things you never suspected. There’s a part of everyone deep down inside of them not meant for you. And the sooner you learn that, the easier your life is gonna be.”