09.01.2007 - 5:21 p.m.

I read a book when I was eleven or so. I don�t remember its name, but it was about a Muslim girl growing up; she and her older sister had arranged engagements to be the first wives of boys they knew and were fond of, but when there�s a fight and one of the boys is killed, the younger sister ends up forced to become the sixth wife of the man who killed him. She runs away to try to avoid it, but is finally caught and has to marry him anyway.

It ends with her aunt helping her dress for the wedding, and the advice the aunt gives was what really stuck with me: �You do have power, you know. The way to his heart is to stay mysterious�a man is always fascinated with the mysterious. So do your duty, please him, but do not trip over yourself trying to get him to notice you. Make him come to you. And when he does, never give him everything you are. So long as you always keep a part of yourself for your own, he will never be able to hurt you.�

It was more eloquent than that. But that was the idea, that survival depends on keeping yourself secret. And at the time, I had braces and coke-bottle glasses and the worst perm ever, and really, really needed a way to keep people from hurting me.

That worked. For a long time.

-stonebridge

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