It was heartbreaking to realize how we can fail the people we most love without even trying.

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.

I no longer needed to peel myself of my skin, or to hide. To Dash the colorless ephemeral things that existed just beneath my surface were as vivid as the beauty marks he traced on my cheek.

We opened a second bottle of Merlot on the soft leather of our pretty mint-green couch. I’d been intoxicated only a handful of instances in my life. Bittersweet truth blooming, a dandelion in my heart, I confessed to him that I was feeling rootless. I whispered in the small cave of my love’s ear, “I am a lost ship.

On this walk I'd had so much time and space to actually figure out who I was without my mother's influence. I understood now: the things that my mother had found made her happy were not the same as the things that made me happy. And I understood: that was okay.

The bravest thing I ever did was leave there. The next bravest thing I did was come back, to make myself heard.

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.