It was always only us

“It was always only us” is the culminating phrase of Sugar’s reply to Aching to Submit and also appears as a Part I heading. It recasts a childhood legend about a frightening figure in a mirror as a reflection on the fear of confronting one’s own truths.

Placement and Function

The phrase appears in the contents as the heading “IT WAS ALWAYS ONLY US,” before “Like an Iron Bell” and “How You Get Unstuck.” It returns at the close of Sugar’s response to Aching to Submit, where its position gives it the force of a conclusion: the letter has moved from shame and apprehension toward a less condemning understanding of desire.

The Mirror Game

Sugar recalls a childhood game in which a person enters a dark bathroom, looks at a shadowy reflection, and repeats “Mary Worth” thirteen times. According to the local legend she recounts, the mirror would crack, blood would appear, and Mary Worth might emerge. The reflection and the repeated name make fear seem to come from an apparition outside the person playing.

Reversal and Meaning

Sugar asks the letter writer to imagine a version of the game with the lights left on and a different sentence repeated. The shift replaces the threat of a supernatural appearance with direct acknowledgment of an uncomfortable truth. Sugar then distinguishes a person’s desires from acts that hurt or force someone, framing the crucial distinction as whether another person’s wishes are overridden. The final phrase names the reversal: the feared figure was never the real source of danger; the harder encounter was with the self. Its concise “us” broadens that recognition beyond the letter writer, making self-confrontation a shared human difficulty.