The Broken (Afterwards #8)

by Nia Forrester

You are terrifying and strange and beautiful, someone not everyone knows how to love. ― Warsan Shire

“Acting like something doesn’t even exist unless it’s on the internet.”

He referred to suicidal thoughts as being akin to tiny cancers that could grow on a person’s psyche, convincing them slowly, insidiously that maybe they would be better off just ending it all. And maybe everyone else in their life would be better off, too.

That was why Devin taught himself to read sheet music when he was thirteen. It was still the best way to capture pitch, rhythms, and chords with precision. Having “an ear” was only half the battle when writing music, you had to have the tools to give the music its voice as well.

When he was younger, he thought it was because of some defect in him, that people looked at him and knew precisely what he was meant to be used for. Because of that, sex had never meant the same things to him as they did to other people.

Hmm

“Sometimes, survivors of sexual trauma recreate their trauma, re-enact it even.”

“It’s logical in its own way. By recreating the trauma event, but with themselves in a position of power and exercising agency, they’re trying to neutralize the powerlessness they felt when they were traumatized. They feel as though they’re asserting mastery over it. Redefining it.”

“The first sense of agency we develop, the first sense of ownership that we have as humans is over our own bodies,” Wendell Harris told him. “Think of a baby holding up its hand, delighting in realizing how it can control the hand, make it move and hold and grasp. That’s a realization of agency over one’s body. “So, if while a child we are robbed of that … if someone takes that body, uses it, deprives us of control over it, we can lose all sense of what’s ours in this world. Ownership of ourselves, of things, of anything, may begin to matter too much. Or not at all.”

anger was a “masking emotion”. “Underneath it is generally something else. Like fear. Or even sadness. But the problem is, anger is noisy. It can loom so large, it hides, or masks the primary emotion you’re feeling.

He had never been truly alone. Not ever. Though he had lived alone, his whole life felt crowded with unwanted company and had been that way for as long as he could remember. Up here, for the first time ever, he had some breathing room.

Makayla was your person. Your sole person. The only one who knew everything about you, and who could be hurt or disappointed by the things you did to yourself. And while you didn’t want to hurt or disappoint her, it was manageable. Just the one person. “Now, well, you have more people.

“You’re building a circle, a community of people who care about you. One might even say a family.”

“So many more people to potentially hurt and disappoint if you allow them to care about you. To care for you, like Jamal is trying to do. Much easier to push those people away. Much safer.”

pattern. Makayla’s drifting away, and so you have room now. One person who truly knows and understands you at a time. It’s less risky that way. Everyone else you want to keep at arms’ length.”

“Our culture loves the notion of a soulmate, Devin. And it can be a heady idea, but even soulmates can’t be all things to you. Your soulmate needs teammates. Other people to support them in supporting and loving you. “You need those other people to support and love you. Not just one. Because if there’s anything we know for sure, it’s that one person cannot be all things to another person. And if they try, it’ll harm them, it’ll harm you, and ultimately, it’ll harm the relationship.”

“Sometimes, someone who has been through a trauma relives or reenacts that trauma; revisits it. As a way to understand it, to control it, to redefine and contextualize it. “Women may have another sexual encounter with a man who raped them, telling themselves that this time since it’s by choice, the prior encounter can be reframed in their mind. Or, they recreate their dehumanization in sexual experiences with other men, and call it sexual liberation.”

“Or a boy whose early sexual initiation was an abusive experience with a man who exercised total control over him may seek out sexual experiences with men, for the sole purpose of reclaiming that control which was once taken away from him.”

sometimes, by not speaking our emotions, we risk losing a deeper, more meaningful connection than we could ever imagine.”