I was tired of hanging on, taking the torn pieces to make something whole with them.

A lot can change between planning something and actually doing it. But maybe all that really matters is that anything is different at all.

I'd still thought that everything I thought about that night-the shame, the fear-would fade in time. But that hadn't happened. Instead, the things that I remembered, these little details, seemed to grow stronger, to the point where I could feel their weight in my chest. Nothing, however stuck with me more than the memory of stepping into that dark room and what I found there, and how the light then took that nightmare and made it real.

"It's gonna be okay," I said. It was the first time in a long time that I believed it. "It will."

You can't make any one person your world. The trick is to take what each can give you and build a world from it.

It's funny how someone's perception of you can be formed without you even knowing it.

So it just wasn't in my house. Anywhere, I looked like I knew about the toilet.