Clare

“Each word shatters through me like an expanding bullet, ripping me apart from the inside out. And that’s how it always is with my family—some sentimental remark, some otherwise throwaway comment, can plunge me right back to being eighteen and sick with guilt and needing my parents to tell me that I’m a good person, despite the bad things I’ve done. I try to plug the rising shame, but it’s too late. It’s always too late.”
― Ella Berman, Before We Were Innocent