Non-Fiction Sundays: Not Like You

A sliver of moon provides plenty of light—that, and his endless chain of matches and Marlboros illuminate his profile. He inhales hard, the last drag, and flicks the butt in an arc out the window. “Might as well take you back,” he drawls.

He starts the truck. It stalls immediately. He curses—You dying fucking pig!—revs the engine and guns it into reverse, backs down the abandoned logging trail until he can turn and head for the rural road where my broken-down car waits. There, he pushes me out his passenger door, orders me to lie across my car seat until he drives away. I peek through my steering wheel and see that he drives half a mile before turning on his lights. Too late, asshole, I think. I’ve already got your number.

Katherine Gries, Not Like You

Katherine Gries begins “Not Like You” at the end of a harrowing sexual assault. Her fixation on the attacker’s license plate number provides not only a point  of focus for herself, but an inner glimpse for the reader. Gries skillfully captures the need to be mentally somewhere else and I found myself also fixating on the the license plate and the calendar’s date. For her, it’s a matter of removing herself from the event – and for the reader, it’s a matter of trying not to imagine what must have come before this story began.