The Other Girl

I grip the hilt of the knife, my hand shaking.

The truth belongs to whomever tells the story first. Their version of it. Someone else always knows the story. No matter how hard you wish it, nothing is ever secret. If you want your truth to be known, make sure you’re the first to tell the story.

I know the truth of what happened. I know our truth.

Carter Hensley fell for me. We fell for each other. Everything was beautiful…until it wasn’t.

Here’s the sad reality: I am a trope. I’m the tired cliché. I am the scorned lover, used, tossed aside and forgotten like a bad penny. There are books and movies that describe my place in all this, and that girl is always depicted as the crazy one. Obsessive. Psychotic.

But no one ever gets to hear her side of the story.

Maybe she wouldn’t be labeled so harshly otherwise.

I look down into the darkness of the ravine. From here, with the night and the silence and no judgement, the fall doesn’t feel that far.

He’ll choose me this time.

But the maddening voice inside my head won’t cease: it’s her. Her. Her. Her.

Her with the cinnamon hair, and perky, innocent smile. The good girl. The fucking saint.

I can never be her.

I’m the other girl.

Induction

Ellis

Einstein had once believed the universe was static. One of the greatest minds to ever exist in our world believed that space had reached its limit—that gravity, with the help of his cosmological constant, held the universe back from expanding.

Everything in existence was in existence.

Think about that for a moment.

How does it make you feel?

To know that you have a grasp on the universe, that it’s far-reaching, yes, but tranquil, serene, the cosmos floating in the heavens, just waiting for us to explore.

One issue with this theory, however—not to knock the great mind of our time—was his own deduction of gravity.

If gravity was the proverbial Stop sign for creation, then the force of the universe’s own gravitational pull would cause it to collapse. The universe would reverse and implode in on itself in one giant crunch.

It’s more than self-serving to envision our universe as static; it’s comforting.

The truth is far more complicated. And violent.

See, there is nothing static about the universe. It’s not just expanding, it’s expanding exponentially, at a more accelerated rate than ever before. Every minute, second, creation is taking place—the result of a violent explosion that is forever rippling outward.

More so, this acceleration may eventually overcome the fibers that hold the universe together and tear all matter apart.

Think about that for a moment.

How does it make you feel?

Like you’ve suddenly lost balance and gravity doesn’t exist? Like you’re flying through the cosmos at supersonic speed and there’s no end?

I know. I’ve felt that way before. It’s frightening to learn how insignificant and fragile we are—that nothing is in our control.