For this entire walk, my desire had ashamed me, as if my wanting to be kissed that night mitigated the fault of Junior's sudden deafness. I'd been given stacks of reasons to blame myself for an act of violence committed by another. I had blamed my flirting for his subsequent felony. My college taught me: my rape was my shame. Everyone I'd trusted asked only what I might have done to let it happen. In my gut, I'd always believed I'd caused it. I finally questioned it.

Held in his piercing powder-blue vision, I froze. A butterfly awakened in my chest.

His simple words of implied tomorrows made me feel secure, adored.

It was as if I had inherited a palace by virtue of simply being in love.

When we apply the lessons we've struggled for our whole lives to learn to the lives of people we love, our love becomes judgment—which is toxic. Our fear our daughters will fail leads us to fail them.

A backlit mist bathed the Cascade foothills in silver as Justin and I pledged our love before a justice of the peace. Standing in the same lush mountains where we’d first met, we exchanged rings, grinning on a stone stage in a fog-flowered forest clearing.

The way to self-love and admiration is to behave like someone whom you love and admire.

Vividly seeing that love had always been my mother's guide, I could finally release my anger—let go of it there in the woods—and move past it.

I sensed he was the one who might be able to see me clearly, the way I most wished to be seen.