As I have been writing and editing my book, it has been a mixture of emotions.
Remembering the reasons I came to Second Life, and why I continued to come back.
Reliving trauma I survived.
Escaping abuse in my real life, only to find it again in a virtual world.
And remembering how, eventually, I began to break the cycle.
Looking back at her now is strange.
I know how frightened she was.
I know how badly she wanted to believe him, and how carefully she kept one hand on the door anyway.
She didn’t know what I know.
She didn’t know that eleven years later, the man she was studying so carefully would still be beside her.
She couldn’t know.
She had to find out the only way any of us ever do.
One day at a time.
