(tw sa, dv)
Bruce walked back from the fire, leaned down over me, and, for a second, I thought I was gonna go right there. But no. He plunked me onto his motorbike and switched into his friendly self. But when we got to his house...I’m trying to get this down, dear diary, but my hands are dumb, and it’s all gone dumb in my mind, too. Guess I don’t have to tell you, dear diary, what it’s like to have a person crack your spine, open you up, and shove a pencil inside you. And I fought him, even with my broken arm and then my rebroken arm. But even still, all the bad things happened that bad men do. He had my legs pulled apart, and my dress pulled up ‘round my waist. And that awful, stuffed full, too wet feeling down there, like I was packed with dirt. And I hope, one day, he feels this, small and cornered and crushed like a can.
But then there were the parts where he brought home kills, and I sat with him and ate. I just said what he wanted to hear. And it ain’t easy to like myself ‘cause of it. I even once felt a twinge of something nice and not the worst thing ever. He let me go ‘cause I seemed small, and it looked like he’d won. And he did win, ‘cause I want nothing. To be nothing. And say nothing. And do nothing. You know the stupidest of all, dear diary? I thought I was the thing lurking in the shadows. I thought I was. — The Vampire Claudia
