Isn’t that what I’ve been doing from the moment I saw my mother lying on the grass? Searching for the love she never had. I told myself I wouldn’t end up like her. I would choose love, bravely, but not that kind, the love that’s really possession. I would find safety in softness, in kindness, in men who see me as a person with goals and things to say—not as something to own, a delicate jewel locked away for safekeeping until they decide to smash it just because they can.
