“But I do,” I whispered.
“My love…” she said, squeezing my hands, “it’s time you forgive yourself.”
I closed my eyes. It hurt. It hurt because I knew she was right, but also because I didn’t know how. I’d become an expert at carrying other people’s guilt, at keeping silent when I should have spoken. I’d learned to run instead of facing what truly hurt.
“I don’t know how,” I finally confessed, voice breaking.
My mother hugged me. She hugged me like she did when I was a child, hiding under the covers after a nightmare. As if she could still protect me from everything.
“Start by staying,” she whispered. “By letting those of us who love you be here. By allowing yourself to feel—even if it hurts.”
We stayed like that for a long while. Clinging to the one thing that remains when everything
