Chapter 6: The Braille of Survival

Two years later, the salty, crisp breeze of the California coast whipped fiercely through the open windows of our shared, off-campus college apartment.

Down on the crowded, sun-drenched beach of Santa Barbara, I lay flat on my stomach on a brightly colored beach towel, listening to the rhythmic, soothing crash of the Pacific waves.

I wasn’t wearing a heavy, suffocating fleece hoodie. I wasn’t hiding inside a thick white bathrobe. I was wearing a simple turquoise two-piece swimsuit.

The jagged, shiny burn scars that mapped my back, my shoulders, and my legs were fully exposed to the blinding sunlight, to the ocean breeze, and to the world.

I was no longer a ghost haunting my own life. I was free.