If I let myself, I can still feel the particular joy of that decision, and it is a joy I have had to learn to hold without letting it curdle.

Because it was real.

Whatever he was, whatever he had done, the tenderness I felt when I finally went to him and said yes was a true tenderness, and the relief of believing I had finally healed enough to love again was a true relief.

He stole a great many things from me, but I have refused to let him steal that, the reality of my own capacity to love and to heal.

The love was mine.