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

I was safe in this world. This was a place for creatures—I felt I had become more of a creature than a girl. I could handle myself in the wild.

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.

I was no longer following a trail. I was learning to follow myself.

We aren’t afraid of what we can explain.

I needed only to allow myself to know what I already knew.

He understood. In lovesickness we had found a common language.

Childhood is a wilderness.

She had wanted me to hold rape inside me like a dark pearl, keep it in there, as it grew, as I grew cramped, as it overtook me as hidden things do. Secrets become lies. I'd carried in every step I took this lie, the shame of it.