Free The Heart Of It by M. O'Keefe

right at the woman in the mirror. My shirt, thanks to the water, was see-through, and I could see the pink of my flesh beneath it. A white bra. My nipples . . . there. Painfully, obviously,
there.
    Slowly I unwound the sheer, floral scarf from around my neck.
    The bruises under my chin and at the sides of my neck were turning yellow at the center. Green at the edges.
    The one at the corner of my mouth was still dark and ugly and red.
    This is my body. Those are my bruises.
    The hands shaking on the sink, those are mine, too.
    Those words I said to that man.
    Dylan.
    Those were mine. My words.
    This is me.
    I took a deep breath, feeling overwhelmed by the empty space around me, usually filled in with so much fear. Without that fear, without the rules—said and unsaid, implicit and explicit—I felt undone. Unmade. As if I’d been pruned, allowing—
God, please, please allow
—new growth.
    My hair, the thick, pretty red curls replaced by a lopsided cut I’d given myself and then dyed black in the Tulsa bus station, made me unrecognizable to myself.
    “So,” I said out loud to the reflection in the mirror. That stranger staring back at me. “Who are you?”