Status Updates From Mon territoire

“There’s a line a mother crosses where she loses the title. When it becomes just a word instead of a bond”

“I can do this… Be nice. Comforting.
The feeling fits like a too-small T-shirt, cutting into me in all the wrong places.”

“It’s that bitter laugh that all women understand. The one that’s born out of years of fear, of waiting, of what-iffing, until it finally happens. Some man takes his anger out on you”

“This isn’t about freedom.
This is about power. Everything is.”

“He gives, thinking it’s the start.
I take, knowing it’s the end.”

“Daddy handles me differently because I’m a girl. He’d never admit it, but proud as he is, he underestimates me. Mo says he can’t help it. That it’s the way fathers are.
Sometimes I think it’s just the way men are.
It used to annoy me. But then I realized it was a weakness.
And I’ve been taught to exploit weaknesses.”

“I speed up. He follows.
All he ever does is chase. And all i ever do is run… but thinking about home always brings me back to him”

“Sometimes you’ve got to save people from themselves. Even if they don’t want it or know it”

“She’d been wild, searching for the kind of free most girls never even touch”

“I realize I’ve just scraped the surface. Of the evil in the world. Of the good.
Of the strength in every woman.”

“‘Hell is what’s waiting for you,’ he says, like it’s some sort of condemnation…
‘Any heaven that lets in men like you, I don’t want anything to do with’”

“Jayden looks down at the money, and I know the private war going on inside her. You’re not supposed to take too much charity. You’re supposed to hold your head high. Stay proud.
It’s bullshit, those lines our parents fed us.
You survive. Any way you can”

“I’d asked her once, what had drawn her to work at the Ruby, and she’d raised her eyebrow and asked me if she needed a tragic backstory to do the right thing. I’d turned red at being called out and apologized, because it was where my mind had gone”

“The Ruby had belonged to Momma, and it’s the one safe place in North County where a woman can go if she’s in trouble. Momma had a soft heart for strays. That’s the way people always put it, with this rueful smile. Like she was silly for caring. Like what she… did wasn’t fierce, protective, womanly instinct”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready… If I’ll ever be able to harden my heart enough for it not to break when I see bruises [on] throats… wrists, on tiny rib cages that haven’t finished growing… I start to wonder if maybe hardness isn’t the answer. Maybe the horror, fresh and present with each woman… bruise and tear, is what I should feel. Maybe hardening a heart is the problem. Not the solution”