Today I took my first step towards fixing some of the errors in this story.  While I feel that the story is pretty solid as it is and I don’t want to completely rewrite it, it is a story.  And there’s no reason I can’t go back to fix stuff I don’t like or feel like could be improved.

The fix I did today was in the January 14, 2024 entry.  This is the entry where Anathema’s life changes.

When I wrote last night’s entry about the body models, I started thinking about Anathema, and about her back story.  How does such a pure girl turn into such a whore?  It’s not just something that happens – there’s usually a reason for it, and it’s usually trauma.

But this highlights something else about this story:  this is the second time (or maybe the first of two, but I think second) that I wrote about a teen girl having a relationship with an older man.  Note please that in both cases I didn’t treat this as something that was desirable.  It’s not.  Sometimes the relationships are, if not legally, at least in intention, consensual.  Sometimes there’s actual love there.  And sometimes (well, often but not 100 percent of the time) that love is pretty one-sided.  And the innocence of a girl is taken away.  Or given away, maybe.

Anathema found a man that she thought she was going to be with for the rest of her life, that she thought would make her dreams come true, that made her feel wonderful things she’d never experienced in her life before.  And she thought much, much more of that relationship than he did, and when she found out that it wasn’t to be… it broke her.  She turned into the cat-girl we know and…  tolerate?  She became, let’s be frank, a pleasure-seeking whore who sought out as much physical pleasure as she could find to hide the empty hole that that man ripped out of her heart.

And it took Jesus to fix her.

This story has never shied away from difficult topics.  And this is a difficult topic.  But I think I handled it well, and I think now, I handled it even better.  Unlike in Crystal’s case, Anathema’s “boyfriend” never had any consequences.  She never told.  Deep down, she still loves him.

And that’s probably the greatest tragedy of all.  Sometimes bonds aren’t broken, even in the midst of the worst betrayals possible.