The Bluff

There once was a girl who liked to sit on Confianza Bluff and watch the sky unwind—blues to oranges to yellows to reds to pinks to nothing. It was only a few miles above her town, but it felt like a distant home. It felt like her own. Of course it wasn’t, the Bluff was for anyone, but aside from the occasional picnic, her neighbors seemed to forget it was even there, looming overhead. It was odd to her, this sense of inverted object permanence—forgetting something because it’s always there, but she wanted the Bluff to be a place she could go to escape herself. It must be like how we train ourselves to not see our noses, she thought, and she didn’t think much further on the matter.

She had been going to the bluff every night since she was fourteen. After all, that is such a terrible age. She wanted to slip away from her life, not in a suicidal way, but in the “I’m running away!” teenager way who will turn back in a matter of minutes—maybe ten, maybe twenty, likely no more than that. She would lie in the grass among wildflowers and leave an impression in the earth and go home.

On a day indistinguishable from any other, aside from another box crossed out on her family’s kitchen calendar, she went to the bluff. The warm colors were already invading the grayish blue flat sky. She wondered what it would be like if the colors didn’t stop there but consumed everything, just for a moment. An orange flood engulfing the trees and the houses and the people.

When she reached the top, she saw shadow-like figures traipsing down a distant trail and no one else. As the air chilled and become darker, an inky tapestry of constellations, she decided it was time to go and brushed the grass she so violently yanked from the ground off of her skirt. She stood and walked toward the trail, disguised by darkness with quick revelations of scattered streetlights. Her energy sank in every step, but she carried on. Eventually she saw an amorphous figure in the distance, as she approached she deciphered it, “It’s a tree….. it’s a person….. it’s a man” and wondered if she was in a knock-off Superman movie or if she really—wait, a man.

Wrist clasped, shoulder pushed, foot dragged. Leaves crunched, shirt ripped, knee bruised. Eyes shut, eyes shut, eyes shut.

Then it was over, and she heard footsteps falling further and further away. She imagined tracing the outline of her body and leaving it there in the depressed blades of grass that pierce in the dry months but luckily were soft tonight. She rolled onto her side so as not to know if her face was wet with dew or tears, although she knew it was both, and stayed until the sky became sheer—pitch to marigold to cornflower.

Under a blue sky whose beauty felt like a taunt, she walked down the bluff and went home. She saw her mom hunched over the kitchen table who looked up and said, “Eve, where have you been? What happened to your skirt? It’s filthy.”

Eve looked down, said, “I was attacked,” and recounted what had happened. Her mom’s heart sank, she couldn’t believe she was hearing this from her perfect daughter.

“Eve, how dare you lie to me, and about something so awful, too.”

 “Mom, I’m not lying, why would I lie? I swear it’s true.”

“I don’t know if I raised a liar or a whore. I don’t know which would be better.”

Eve left her house and went to her best friend’s in tears. Her friend’s mother opened the door, “you look awful, Eve, what’s wrong?” And Eve said, “I was attacked,” and recounted what happened. The mother was dismayed, “that would never happen here, and it’s wrong to make such terrible jokes.” The mother knew she said all the right things, and thought to herself, “nice try.”

Eve was desperate for anyone to believe her, so she went to the school and found her favorite teacher. Her skirt was torn and covered in dirt; her face had glistening streaks fully dried but still visible. Her teacher was worried, “Eve? Are you okay? What is the matter?” And Eve said, “I was attacked,” and recounted what happened. Her teacher didn’t know what to say to such an outlandish claim. She replied, “Eve, I never took you for a liar. I’m disappointed.” The teacher was content knowing a teenager couldn’t trick her.

Eve was lost, until she eventually found one of her friends. The friend saw Eve and said, “Are you okay? What’s wrong?” And Eve said, “I was attacked,” and recounted what happened. Her friend was upset. “Well, were you asking for it?”

 “No, I was just—”

“Well, where were you?”

“I was at the Bluff, I alwa—”

“Alone?”

“Yes, but—”

“When?”

“Last night.”

“Night? Was it dark?”

“Yes.”

                  “Who did it?”

                                    “I don’t know—”

Eve started stumbling over her words as the questions came faster and faster. She hadn’t yet had time to think herself, at least not really. The friend eventually said, “Eve, if this was true, you wouldn’t mix up your story so much. Do you really want attention that badly? You know there are people who actually experience that stuff, right? Like real victims.” The friend was proud of herself, she caught Eve in a lie and defended survivors; she was noble and brave.

Everyone Eve saw was two steps ahead of her, sure not to get caught up in her stories. They weren’t fools, after all. Everywhere she went, she heard whispers of “liar,” “whore,” and “what a shame.”

Eve wanted to escape her body and her mind but couldn’t bring herself to go back to the bluff. She started to think maybe everyone was right, maybe it didn’t happen, and she had been lying for some unknowable reason. Then she looked down and saw remnants of grass and dirt under her nails and thin scratches around her wrist.

She had wandered all around her village and resolved to go home. On her way, a man she didn’t recognize saw her crying and stopped her. He offered to walk her home, given her emotional state. Eve said no, and looked at his hands, dirt and grass lodged under his fingernails. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, smiled, and said, “nobody believes a girl... even when she is telling the truth.”