Elastic Heart by Mary Catherine Gebhard

scent is still as evil.
    Morris didn’t notice me. He was too busy being a lecher. The girl he was assaulting, however, did. Her eyes widened, threatening to pop out. I wished I could have given her some hint that I was her friend, but in order to do what I was about to do, I had to go completely numb. I couldn’t feel anything. Compassion was gone.
    The only weapon on my body was the knife and my knife training consisted of cutting up tomatoes. Somehow, I thought Morris would be a little more difficult than the occasional slippery tomato. I was only about a foot away from him. My gut clenched.
    I could leave. I could turn around and run away and he would never know. I could still get out.
    But I didn’t.
    Because that girl was me once, and everyone had turned and run away from me.
    I swallowed and turned off my brain. Thoughts would only hurt. Getting ready to use my knife, I elbowed Morris in the neck. He coughed and sputtered, taken off guard. Using that to my advantage, I pressed him against the wall, knife to neck.
    Morris wasn’t a big man. He was maybe only an inch or two taller than my 5’7” self, but his presence was imposing. As I shoved him against the brick wall, I had to keep reminding myself that I was the one with the knife.
    Finally I had evidence. Finally a witness to take down Morris. I wouldn’t need to frame him. It was one thing if one intern called him a rapist. You could call one intern a liar and a whore, but when two interns come out of the woodwork…and what if—now I was just dreaming here—but what if when me and the new girl came out, more of his victims surfaced?
    I was starting to get giddy. I finally fucking had the guy. I turned my head to tell the girl to call the police, my mouth already forming the words, but she was gone. I saw her bare feet disappear around the ally. My heart sank. I knew she was terrified. I’d been there before. Still, when I’d signed up for saving her, I hadn’t known I was signing up for being alone with Morris. For it all over again.
    Maybe she saw me as a vigilante. Vigilantes didn’t need help, after all. I mean, when was the last time a citizen stuck around to help a superhero? Check: never. I wasn’t a vigilante though. I was terrified. Literally quaking in my boots. I had a knife up to my demon, the thing that had haunted me for months.
    Now what?
     
    “My name is Nami DeGrace. I was your intern.” I gripped the knife’s handle, trying to be tough. If any crack in my foundation was exposed, Morris would use that to gut me open. 
    Instinctively I shoved the knife harder against his throat. A small slice of satisfaction hit me when a tiny bit of red blood popped out, like sprigs of Christmas holly decorating his neck. His eyes widened, but to his credit he still acted calm. I wasn’t sure if that was bravery or idiocy.
    Probably a little bit of both.
    I nearly pressed the knife harder when he didn’t speak. I had said my name and told him who I was, but he didn’t acknowledge me. Could he really have forgotten me? Could he have forgotten what he had done to me?
    Memories of that night came crashing over me, like when I was a teenager swimming in the ocean and I went too far out. The waves crushed me and dragged me so far under I scraped my skin against the coral. I was saved by a lifeguard.
    Before the lifeguard got to me, I remembered thinking how I was going to die. I couldn’t get above the water because the waves kept crashing and crashing. Any time I tried to break through, another would crash on top of me and swirl me in its deathly grip. Then something grabbed my arm and pulled me up.
    My eyes stung with saltwater and my throat felt like the membrane had been scraped away. I could barely see through all the sand and salt in my eyes. Now, as I kept my knife to Morris’s throat, that same feeling of hopelessness commingled with bitter relief fell over me.
    He had known exactly who I was when he’d pushed me to the ground. He’d