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GOTH GIRL, QUEEN OF THE UNIVERSE

Bang! Bang! Bang!
Someone pounded on the front door, startling my mother from
sleep. I fumbled for the light switch, but it was too late.
“What have you done?” my mother whisper-hissed at me,
her eyes wide.
I loved my mother, but I was terrified of her when her eyes
grew wild. I’d seen her like this before, many times.
The banging continued.
“I know you’re in there!” someone yelled. “Open the door or
I’ll call the police!”
My mother grabbed my hand and dragged me into the bed-
room. “Get under the bed.”
I dropped to my stomach and shimmied under the bed frame,
pushing aside long-forgotten socks covered in dust bunnies.

“Don’t make a sound,” she whispered as she pulled the bed
sheets low so their seams brushed the floor in front of my face. I
watched the pads of her feet walk out of the bedroom, disappearing
back into the living room.
The lock chain on the front door rattled as my mother opened it.
I can’t remember what was said. All I remember was the unnatural
calm of my mother’s voice in the presence of screaming anger. I
remember forgetting to breathe until my lungs felt like they would
burst. But what I remember most from my hours under the bed
was how I held my body perfectly rigid while I watched a family
of spiders crawl around my frozen hands.
Sometime late in the night I must have fallen asleep. I woke
up sore and groggy. Sunlight striped the floor from between the
blinds. I held my breath to listen. The voices were gone. I dragged

my body out from under the bed as quietly as I could, then I paused
to listen again.

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4/21/22 11:35 AM
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FLUX_GOTH_FPGS.indd 11 4/21/22 11:35 AM