Vultures

"You talk like a waterfall but underneath there's nothing but hard rock, huh?" Andrea said.

Joanna went silent. It was true. She avoided being asked uncomfortable questions, hell, even questions at all by asking others. All her life she'd fought against the town talking about her behind her back. When they first found out when her son turned 18 and the whole thing blew up she knew, no, she could feel how they were talking about her but never to her. It had become a habit to try and divert to conversation to something that revolved around the other person. She'd become a master of it. And for years she'd wanted to pry like people had done to her. Before Andrea faced her with this truth she hadn't given why she never talked about herself much thought. It was easier to just ignore it. Ignore what hurt. And go see if other people hurt too. It wasn't a grand thing she was doing, it wasn't like she was trying to prove some big point. Only to the people who had hurt her when she had been so young and so vulnerable. She wanted to put a mirror to the vultures' faces and show them who they were. How ugly they were. She'd never been able to find forgiveness in her heart for them, she realized. She saw now that she was doing to Andrea what had been done to her. She herself had become one of the vultures without having noticed it. Her defence mechanism had turned her into the very thing she despised so deeply. And she couldn't help but start to cry.