Educated

by Tara Westover

stood and quietly locked the bathroom door, then I stared into the mirror at the girl clutching her wrist. Her eyes were glassy and drops slid down her cheeks. I hated her for her weakness, for having a heart to break. That he could hurt her, that anyone could hurt her like that, was inexcusable.

For all my obsessing over the consequences of that night, I had misunderstood the vital truth: that its not affecting me, that was its effect.

I am not a good daughter. I am a traitor, a wolf among sheep; there is something different about me and that difference is not good.

Curiosity is a luxury reserved for the financially secure:

“You are not fool’s gold, shining only under a particular light. Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were. It was always in you. Not in Cambridge. In you. You are gold. And returning to BYU, or even to that mountain you came from, will not change who you are. It may change how others see you, it may even change how you see yourself—even gold appears dull in some lighting—but that is the illusion. And it always was.”

“She was just a cockney in a nice dress. Until she believed in herself. Then it didn’t matter what dress she wore.”

But vindication has no power over guilt. No amount of anger or rage directed at others can subdue it, because guilt is never about them. Guilt is the fear of one’s own wretchedness. It has nothing to do with other people.

But what has come between me and my father is more than time or distance. It is a change in the self. I am not the child my father raised, but he is the father who raised her.