My Dark Vanessa(72)

Who’s going to break into my bedroom? I shoot back. You?

Maybe.

With Craig, it’s only chatting online, which makes it ok even when he acts like a creep. I haven’t seen him since that night at the bowling alley, and I’m not in any rush to, but he says he wants to see me. He talks all the time about how he wants to take me out.

Where would we even go? I ask, like I’m stupid. Whenever the conversation veers off in a direction I don’t like, I play dumb, which means I play dumb so often, he thinks I actually am.

What do you mean, where? Craig writes. To the movies, dinner. Haven’t you ever been on a date before?

Ok, but I’m sixteen.

You could pass for eighteen.

He doesn’t understand how this works, doesn’t get that I don’t want to pass for eighteen and that I have zero interest in going to the movies as though he were a boy my own age.



The weather cools to a raw gray. The leaves change and fall, the woods turn sparse with skeletal trees. I learn things about myself: that if I limit myself to five hours of sleep, I’m too tired to care what happens around me; if I wait until dinnertime to eat anything, hunger pains drown out any other feelings. Christmas comes and goes, another new year; the TV news still screams about anthrax and war. At school, the rumors about me have long died down. My parents stop locking the cordless phone in their bedroom every night.

I keep chatting with Craig, but his compliments turn stale and the feeling he gave me when I first met him dries up. Now when we chat, all I can think about is what Strane would think of him and what Strane would think of me for spending my time talking to him.

Craig207: Can I admit something? I had a one-night stand on Saturday.

dark_vanessa: why are you telling me this?

Craig207: Because I think you should know that I thought about you the whole time.

dark_vanessa: hmmm

Craig207: I pretended she was you.



Craig207: So you still haven’t heard from that teacher?

dark_vanessa: it’s not safe for us to talk.

Craig207: You talk to me. How is that different?

dark_vanessa: you and I haven’t done anything. we’re just talking.

Craig207: You know I want to do more than talk.

Craig207: He’s really the only guy you’ve been with?

Craig207: Hello? You there?



Craig207: Look, I’ve been pretty patient, but I’m reaching my breaking point. I’ve had it with this endless talking.

Craig207: When can I see you?

dark_vanessa: um not sure. maybe next week?

Craig207: You said next week is February break.

dark_vanessa: oh yeah. I dunno. it’s hard.

Craig207: It doesn’t have to be hard. We can make this happen tomorrow.

Craig207: I work half a mile away from the high school. I’ll pick you up.

dark_vanessa: that wouldn’t work.

Craig207: It will work. I’ll prove it.

dark_vanessa: what does that mean?

Craig207: You’ll see

dark_vanessa: what are you saying???

Craig207: You get out around 2, right? That’s usually when I see all the buses lining up out front.

dark_vanessa: what are you going to do just show up or something?

Craig207: You’ll see then how easy it is

dark_vanessa: please do not do that.

Craig207: You don’t like the idea that the man you’ve been toying with might finally take some action?

dark_vanessa: I’m serious

Craig207: See ya





I block his screen name, delete all our chats and emails, and fake sick the next day, grateful that at least I never told him exactly where I live so there’s no chance he’ll find me at home. When I return to school, I carry my house key so it sticks out between my fingers as I walk from the school doors to the bus. I imagine him grabbing me from behind, forcing me into his truck, and then who knows what. Rape and murder me, probably. Carry my corpse to the movies so we can finally have that stupid date he always went on about. After a week passes and nothing happens, I stop holding my key like a weapon and unblock his screen name to see if he’ll message me. He doesn’t. He’s gone. I tell myself I’m relieved.



In early March, my copy of Lolita goes missing from my nightstand. I tear my room apart searching for it; the thought of losing it has me almost out of my mind with panic. It wasn’t just my copy; it was Strane’s—his notes in the margins, traces of him on the pages.

I don’t really believe my parents took it, but I don’t know how else it could have disappeared. Downstairs, Mom sits alone at the dining room table. It’s covered in bills, a calculator with a spool of paper. Dad’s in town buying sugaring supplies for the upcoming weekends of boiling down maple sap on the woodstove, filling the house with sweet steam.

“Did you go in my room?” I ask.

She looks up from the calculator, her face serene.

“Something’s missing,” I say. “Did you take it?”

“What is it that’s missing?” she asks.

I take a breath. “A book.”

She blinks, looks back down to the bills. “What book?”

I clench my jaw; my stomach tightens. It feels like she wants to see if I’ll say it. “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “It was mine. You have no right to take it.”