That is what safety does to a person, I have found.

When you are frightened and dependent, you need the powerful to acknowledge you, because their acknowledgment is bound up with your survival.

When you are safe, you are free of them — free to let them think whatever small thing they will, and turn, unbothered, back to your own life.

I did not need Justin to see me.

His father had seen me.

That had always been enough, and now, at last, it was also permanent.