Phantom Limb

by Lucinda Berry

I understood why Emily spent so much time sleeping. It was the closest you could get to death without physically dying.

“When children are young, there are critical periods of development where important tasks take place. One of the biggest tasks is the attachment to a primary caregiver. As psychologists, we know this is one of the most important things to happen during the first five years of life. Sometimes when it doesn’t occur, children grow up unable to form attachments with other people, or they form what we call disorganized attachment.

but their insertions gave me as much enjoyment as inserting a tampon.

When girls are sexually abused, they tend to behave in one of two ways—they either become extremely promiscuous, or they end up avoiding all forms of sexual behavior and become unresponsive to sex.

you do that to me?” Elizabeth hadn’t ever raised her voice at me, and now she was screaming. I didn’t know how to stop it or make it better. She was the one who knew how to make things right. “He should’ve known! That