Group

“If you can’t say no in relationships, then you can’t be intimate,” Dr. Rosen said.

“When you agree to keep someone’s secret, you hold their shame.”

“You don’t need a cure. You need a witness.”

That was how I’d always imagined the surface of my heart—smooth, slick, unattached. Nothing to grab on to. Unscored. No one could attach to me once the inevitable heat of life bore down. I suspected the metaphor went deeper still—that I was afraid of marring my heart with the scoring that arose naturally between people, the inevitable bumping again