Her sense of self slipped from her as easily as a coat slips off the back of a chair. She’d outgrown the girl she’d been in Florida, but how did one go about building up someone new? She tried on moods and personalities like outfits. One day she was interested in ruthlessness. The next, she wanted to be an object of adoration. She put her faith in the transformative power of new boots, liquid eyeliner, and once—terrifyingly—a beret, as if an identity could seep in from the outside, like nicotine from a patch.
