I look pretty and powerful, I tell myself. I say it out loud anyway. “You’re pretty and powerful.” Maybe one day I’ll believe it. I turn sideways and gaze at the jagged row of scars that travel from my shoulder down across my back to my hip, cutting zigzags into my skin. Most are pale, faded over time, but they still mark a map on my body. Some are mean, refusing to go quietly into the night. Together, they are all a story told in one act of what happened one horrible night. I am pretty and powerful.
