For a long time, a cold draft, or the particular white of a heavy snowfall, or a certain tone in a stranger’s voice, could put me right back on that ledge.

I had to learn to be touched again without flinching.

I had to grieve — and this surprised me more than anything — I had to grieve Brandon, or rather to grieve the man I had believed Brandon was, who had never actually existed, but whose loss was somehow real anyway.

You cannot spend nine years loving someone and feel nothing when you learn the whole thing was a con; the love was real even though its object was fake, and real love, misplaced, still has to be mourned when you finally set it down.

So no, the chapel did not fix me.

What the chapel did was give me the ground to stand on while I fixed myself, slowly, with help, over a long time.