When I was growing up I was afraid of what was behind the shower curtain

I couldn’t see what was beyond it, only hearing the drip of the faucet that was eventually fixed

I had seen enough shows to know that was where the ‘villain’ would lurk, waiting to pounce on the main characters who had created a miraculous trap for the antagonist to fall into

Eventually the foe was captured and their mask was removed to only reveal someone less terrifying than the creature they were pretending to be

But now the villain is masked behind friends of friends and the shower is in the form of beds and couches but you can’t set a trap and the person behind the mask is worse than the movie villain you wish they had been parading as

And you don’t escape with your Scooby gang and celebrate, 

In fact the eventual ‘gang’ you find is the group of women you talk to about what happens in these hidden places in screams and whispers in cars and in the corners of silent rooms so the friends of friends don’t hear

The fear of what could be behind my shower curtain prepared me for a life of holding keys and pepper spray, facing the unknown and wishing it was like my shower curtain- the probability of someone hiding in my shower was slim to none, and that movies can be separated from real life

But the feeling of walking down an alleyway prepared for the worst comes from experience and it hurts but you’re told to move on but you can’t and so you prepare and wait and hope that the alley is just an alley just like how your shower is just a shower