The girl who couldn’t say no…

The girl who couldn’t say no ate too-salty eggs for breakfast. For prom she had two dates - until, of course, they discovered one another, and then she had none. She dreaded the sound of her phone, with its relentless ringing expectations. She favored wooded paths: the whoosh and thrum of owl or hawk wings overhead. The scurry and crackle of squirrels in the underbrush. Even the silent slither of snakes over river rocks was preferable to incessant invitations.

She needed a strong no — free from fear or dread, disentangled from guilt or rumination. A dense no with deep roots, a tall straight no with leaves reaching toward the light. This would give her oxygen. When she tried to speak her truth, she felt a tightening at her throat. Not like a noose. More like a leash, pulling her into the past.

Her disfigurement was as invisible as it was debilitating. Her yes was amputated along with her no - since those go together like light and shadow, All that was left was absence and accommodation. And a stump of determination.