Prologue

Don’t fetishize descents into madness, girl, whatever you do. Play with knives, scare the fuck out of your friends, but don’t make an idol of a woman who didn’t know any better.

I do my best writing when I am walking or in the shower, which is to say, I’m convinced that talking to myself counts as writing.

These days I can’t see or hear ‘daughter’ without cringing.

All I want to do is call him ‘Daddy’.

Sometimes he tells me ‘I’m proud of you’ and I want to stab him until he reconsiders.

I don’t want to hear ‘good girl’ anymore because I don’t want to be reminded that I never had a choice.