Not changing your circumstances. Changing yourself.

Putting away the things that you had always believed. Digging deep into your wounds, rubbing antiseptic into them so they could be cleansed, even though it was going to hurt.

“We can’t have a relationship,” Sammy said. “Not like this. Not while you’re intent on dragging me back into all that. Blaming me. Accusing me of things. And I’m tired of hoping for one. I’m going to be a better mother.”

“Is that what you came here for?” her mom said. “To insult me?”

She shook her head. “No. I came here because I knew there would be answers. I sort of hoped it might be answers that would fix us. But I can’t fix you. I can only fix me.”

She turned around and started to walk away. “There you go,” her mom said. “Running away again.”

Sammy stopped. “I am,” Sammy said. “I’m running away from all this useless wreckage. And I’m running to where I always should have been.”

When Sammy got back up to her camper, the sun was just sinking behind the mountains, casting a rosy glow on everything around her. She needed to think for a while, needed to sit with the changes that had reshaped the landscape of her soul after that conversation with her mother.

And she let herself feel it, all of it. Without that protective layer she’d built up to cover her pain over the years.

That protection she’d been so desperate to protect.

That protection that would do nothing but turn her into a hard, bitter soul who could never be more than an abused and neglected daughter.

Who would never be able to be the best mother she could be.

The best wife.

The best person.

No, that protection didn’t really keep her safe. It kept her separate.

It kept her from being whole.

And she let it go now. All of it.

She missed Ryder. She missed having bacon with him. She missed her bowl of fruit.

She missed every single thing about him. Leaving him had been like chopping off an arm.

She hadn’t realized quite how much she relied on him to function in all ways until she didn’t have him around. So here she was, functioning without him.

She had told herself she maybe needed to do that.

For him.

But that was a lie.

She was forced to examine herself, now that she was spending so much time alone. So much time in the quiet. There was nothing shocking she could say to distract herself from what was going on. She simply had to sit in it. And that was uncomfortable.

Deeply so.

She had been thinking a lot about how their relationship had begun. How she had come to him. Baited him until he had become her friend. Offered him sugar in exchange for sanctuary.

And he had given it.

She had offered up pieces of herself. But never the whole thing. Because there was a reason that she had slipped into bed with him all those nights. Because she had wanted his comfort, had wanted the warmth of his body. Had wanted to be near him.