ACTUALLY by Anna Zeigler

AMBER: I don’t know how to say out loud what happened next. Which is that I
let him do what he wanted. I mean, I lay there as he pounded into me, this vacant look in
his eyes, just thinking, “You idiot, Amber” because I’d let myself believe that he actually
liked me. And also “fuck you, Tom” because stupidly I thought that he could see that I’d
spent my entire existence feeling…invisible, and that he would therefore know how
amazing it would be just to look at me right now, because I think he’s pretty much the
greatest, and it would mean so much to feel for a second that he might think I’m worth
seeing too.

And I felt so profoundly, like desperately….sad, like am I the only one aware of
the fact that I’m on this earth, in which case am I really on it? And if I don’t exist then
who is this, what is the point of this brain constantly tourturing me with all this self doubt
if there is no self; what is this body I’m inside of, this body I hate, that never does what I
want I to and doesn’t look good in the clothes I put it in, that I don’t like to look at too
long in the mirror, that seems so wholly inadequate to the task of housing a person in this
awful, fucked up world.

And Tom didn’t see any of that.. he didn’t see or forgive anything of my body or
my soul.

(Then, quietly, realizing) So of course I didn’t say anything else that night. I wasn’t even
there. But I’m here, now. And I can’t just be silent anymore. I can’t do that to myself. But
the cost of not doing that to myself anymore is… Tom. Which is just… And the he starts
to cry, and we just…so now we’re both…

I remember this Kierkegaard quote we learned in intro Phil. “It belongs to the
imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through
its opposite.” But I don’t know what it means.