“ The child in the middle of the room was glaring at him, for child she was, no matter what her advanced years. She was a virgin, untouched, unkissed, innocent and angry, and he was prepared to enjoy hi… Anne Stuart
“ I had no evidence. No physical signs of my rape existed anymore. My body had already purged them. That was the irreversible reality. Aspen Matis
“ These tools were my parents’ way of saying: What you’re doing is important. We support it. We want to help you find your way. Aspen Matis
“ I was so much more powerful than anyone knew. I was an animal learning to fight back, instinctively, fiercely. I was a brave girl. I was a fit fox.I realized that the most empowering important thing w… Aspen Matis
“ I made a conscious effort to name my needs and desires. To carefully listen to and accurately identify what I felt. Hunger, exhaustion, cold, lower-back ache, thirst. The ephemeral pangs: wistfulness… Aspen Matis
“ I'd have to be impolite, an inconvenience, and sometimes awkward. But if I could commit, all that discomfort would add up to zap predatory threads like a Taser gun. I'd stun them. They'd bow to me. I'… Aspen Matis
“ Absolutely devout in her complete care of my body, she had only taught me to be weak and voiceless. But I had unlearned that lesson. Our enmeshment no longer felt to me like proof of love. I was no lo… Aspen Matis
“ It was heartbreaking to realize how we can fail the people we most love without even trying. Aspen Matis
“ I realized that no, no one would actually come to save or even stop me, I had absolutely no choice. The scale tipped: the moment not doing it became more difficult and unbearable than just doing it. Aspen Matis
“ I doubted I could survive in the woods without these very basic things to help me. It seemed like a tremendous leap of faith to forsake the tools I’d always been told I needed. And yet leaving college… Aspen Matis
