He had cut every rope that connected me to anyone who loved me, so that when the time came to break me, there would be no one watching, no one to miss me, no one to ask.

I understand now that the isolation was the real weapon, more than the phone or the money or even the leg — that everything else was in service of it.

Because a person with people around her cannot be broken the way they meant to break me.

If my mother had been calling, if my friends had been dropping by, if anyone had been close enough to notice that I had gone quiet and strange and frightened, the whole project would have been impossible; someone would have seen, and asked, and pulled me toward the light.

So the first and most important work Garrett did, long before the leg, was to make sure no one was close enough to see.