Katherine had made a promise to her mother. After what happen the first time. She knew the promise was something she made with all her heart because of the gravity of what she did. She knew this. She had sat across from her mother in the kitchen of their home, with the weight of what had happened with the boy still heavy in the room between them, and she had said out loud, with the full sincerity of someone who meant every word that she would not let her anger be in charge of her again. Her mother had looked at her for a long time before she said anything. And when she spoke, she had said: I believe you. And I need you to believe yourself.
Katherine had believed herself. For eleven months she had believed herself. She had swallowed things that the girl she used to be would never have swal
