Nostalgia is powerful. It is natural, human, to long for the past, particularly when we can remember our histories as better than they were. - Roxane Gay

Sometimes people tell me that something bad happened to me, but I am brave and strong. I don’t want to be told that I am brave or strong. I am not right just because he was wrong. I don’t want to be made noble. I want someone willing to watch me thrash and crumple because that, too, is the truth, and it needs a witness. “He broke me,” I say to a friend. “You’re not broken,” she whispers back. I turn my palms up, wishing I could show her the pieces.

No one gets to rake over the details of my life and determine if they think what happened to me was bad enough for me to have earned my scars, my limitations, my superpowers.

She didn't care if he was telling the truth. Milly felt nothing but she was very good at making men think otherwise. Sometimes, she nearly convinced herself.