a sense of self

I’ve had moments where I felt strong, like lightning in my bones—like when I testified against my abusive ex and saw him go to jail. When I was running drills in fire school, sweaty and focused and too stubborn to quit. Even when it didn’t end the way I wanted, I knew I was becoming something.

Now, I’m in the in-between. I live with my parents again

“It was uncomfortable to Merritt when she considered how readily she now marked time this way, how every event in her history seemed to plant itself only in proximity to his suicide.”

“Because even now, five —could it really be five? — years later, she didn’t actually feel all that much better about it. Not really — not enough — but what could possi

“She was a person like this: full of opinion and firm standing, she planted her flag in more topics than you could quite believe she could actually care about.”

Plain Bad Heroines