The Day I Disappeared

by Brandi Reeds

“You survived,” Dad says. “You owe it to yourself, to others who weren’t as fortunate, not to dwell on the past. Please. Concentrate on what’s ahead of you, not what’s behind you. What’s in the past will always be there.

“It made you feel comfortable,” Matt says. “Like he cared and understood what you’d been through. But the thing about feeling comfortable . . . sometimes you feel comfortable in a bad situation because you’re used to it. It’s comfortable because it’s familiar. Not because it’s good for you.”

One of the hardest things about being a mother: watching your kid trip on the same cracks in the pavement you stumbled on.