I’d lost literally everything good in my life—everything worth living for. Reminders of home sliced me open, like I was walking on broken glass. If I’d spent every day bleeding, I would have been ripped to shreds. So I’d limited contact with the outside world. I’d known I’d pay a price for it later, but the longer I spent there, the harder my resolve had grown. Because I wasn’t just protecting myself—doing what I had to do to survive. I was protecting them. I didn’t want them to see who I’d become. I didn’t want them to have to know.
