The Almost-Woman Fiction by

Carly Stone

I used to be more than just a sunken body in the river. I used to be a girl who laughed and played and listened to music, but today I am just a corpse caught between two flat rocks keeping me from following the tide. My parents knew me as a baby and then a child and then an almost-woman. My dad used to pick me up and tell me how big I was getting, and my mom always said I had long legs. They knew my freckles popped out when I smiled and disappeared when I got embarrassed. My mom knew I had a crush on Baker Stevenson (who lived down the street) because she found his school yearbook photo cut out and taped behind my bedside table, but she would never tell. She is a great secret keeper. My dad knew I only acted scared when he threatened to throw me in the ocean on our family vacation, but he let me stay small for one more day. My friends knew how much I loved basketball and skipping in the rain. They knew how much I desperately wanted to learn to dance but would never try unless I was alone. My best friend Adrienne knew lots of my favorite secrets and dreams, and I knew hers. Together we shaped our futures. We were both going to be famous and make enough money to buy houses on the same block and make our husbands go golfing together while we had pool parties with our nannies and kids. We played MASH and hosted sleepovers with lots of ice cream and loud music. She knew me as the person I was and the person I could have been. My murderer knew my body. He only knew my button nose and budding chest. He knew how I smelled when I walked past him in the library every summer afternoon. He knew my fingernails were usually cracked and bleeding from picking and fidgeting. He knew my legs were fast but not fast enough. He saw my body parts and thought he knew the sum of me. He even tried to break me into those parts, but it didn’t work. He would never know who I was. He took me far away from myself even before he murdered me because he thought he could own me if he removed my body from my life back home.

I remember the drive being long and winding. From the back of the truck, I could catch glimpses of the trees that were busy changing from a deep emerald to burning colors of red, yellow, and orange. Those same trees were too busy to speak to me, although now, from under the water, they have lots to say. Now, I can look up at them forever and sing like my mom once sang, “All the leaves are falling down, falling down, falling down…walk around and pick them up, pick them up, pick them up.”

They used to look for my body, which made me sad because they thought that if someone found it, they would have a part of me back. I guess the truth is that they would have parts of my body back, but they could never have me. My attacker took part of my collarbone for keepsies to prove that he owned me once, but he doesn’t know that I am not my bones. And my parents don’t know that my body won’t bring me back. And Adrienne doesn’t know I can still see her dreams without eyes.

I hope they forget about my corpse and never find me. It would be unrecognizable to them now. My legs are bloated; My freckles have faded from the darkness of the depths; My nose is broken in places that disfigure my entire face, and my chest is caved in from the weight of the water; My fingernails are all but gone from trying to scratch away my bindings. My body tells the story of my death, not my life.

There are lots of us down here: almost-women who were ourselves once. I hear them hum, bubble, and settle into the riverbed just like me. But I will never know them. I will only know their parts, not their stories. I make-up names for them and pretend I know who they were back then. Kendall is twelve and used to be really good at braiding. Alejandra just turned fifteen and loves thinking about her shiny quinceañera dress with lots of sequins. Marley is 16 and loves to read; I think I’ve seen her in the library before. Sometimes their stories bleed into mine as I remember who I was and what could have been.

Sometimes I am my chubby knees or uneven smile. Sometimes I am even tips of my fingers. Sometimes I am the pull of the ocean or ripple of a pond or the wind in the fall trees, but I am never just a body caught between two flat rocks keeping me from following the tide