I was so much more powerful than anyone knew. I was an animal learning to fight back, instinctively, fiercely. I was a brave girl. I was a fit fox. I realized that the most empowering important thing was actually simply taking care of myself.

I realized that the most empowering important thing was actually simply taking care of myself.

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

I had no evidence. No physical signs of my rape existed anymore. My body had already purged them. That was the irreversible reality.

I doubted I could survive in the woods without these very basic things to help me. It seemed like a tremendous leap of faith to forsake the tools I’d always been told I needed. And yet leaving college to walk was such a massive leap of faith already, and nothing I’d ever trusted and believed in seemed true any longer.

I didn’t know if I was brave or reckless.

I'd have to be impolite, an inconvenience, and sometimes awkward. But if I could commit, all that discomfort would add up to zap predatory threads like a Taser gun. I'd stun them. They'd bow to me. I'd let my no echo against the mountains. And better to feel bad for a moment saying no—and stop it—than to get harmed. I would take better care. That small word, no. I'd see its deity.

I was promising myself strength. I had to write it, say it, make the effort and fake it before I actually believed I could do it.

I was beginning to feel compassion for myself.