I try to imagine my path, but all I see is a large stretch of earth covered with green, untrampled grass.

That does it. Phone down. I’m up. Stretching my long arms out to both sides and arching my back. Rex’s strong hands around my waist. His thumbs gently rubbing my ribs. And I pull my arms in, look for another distraction, something that might stop me from remembering the feeling of his long body lying next to mine under the tall pines.

Magazines. A stack of them in the brass tray on the ottoman in the middle of the room. Don’t even think about it, I tell myself. I’d be trying to cut out stuff for my walls in no time.

Books. Rows and rows of them that stretch floor to high ceiling on the wall at the foot of the sofa. But reading truths about other people’s lives always makes me wonder about the truths of my own. And I’d only end up with some kind of quote I’d want to tack up on my walls.

My bare walls.

Just thinking about them makes this oversized burnt-orange sofa feel like my forever home. When I used to step into my room, a ton of images and poems and quotes and facts would greet me. Little bits of everything I loved. Little things that gave me a way to look at my life . . . at all the possible meanings for my feelings . . . at all the possible signs for which way to go.

But when I’m in there now (which is only when I’m getting dressed in the morning . . . I’ve been sleeping on the sofa all week), there is nothing but me.

But who am I, really? Without basketball. Without all the little things that I thought made up who I was. And if I don’t even know who I am, how am I supposed to know what to do with the rest of my life. Can somebody please tell me that?

I’m so tired of trying to figure it all out. But even more tired of being out here, hiding. Hiding doesn’t do anything but make your problems worse. I guess Daddy’s mess taught me that.

No more hiding, I decide, and take a step toward the hallway. And another one, my long bare feet marching off the thick, woven rug onto the wooden floor. One after the other after the other until I’m standing at my closed bedroom door, yellow light shining on the tips of my toes.

I go in.

Even though I know what to expect, seeing my bare walls still feels like death. I look back at the black box holding all of my old things, buried under magazines in the corner of my closet crammed full of clothes. Knowing that they’re there, that I can still visit them, is at least some kind of comfort.