“I saw myself exactly as he saw me. And that made me angry.”

“When I saw him look at me with lust, I dropped my eyes but, in glancing away from him, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. And I saw myself, suddenly, as he saw me, my pale face, the way the muscles in my neck stuck out like thin wire. I saw how much that cruel necklace became me. And, for the first time in my innocent and confined life, I sensed in myself a potentiality for corruption that took my breath away.”

“I was brought up to believe that how I saw myself was more important than how others saw me.”

“I see you,” he said ever so softly. I knew exactly what he meant, because I too saw myself for the first time.”

“Ben made me laugh. I was attracted to his attraction for me: the way he smiled for instance, whenever he saw me, that goofy kind of grin that hijacks the face of the helplessly smitten.”

“I was no Cherokee. I was no warrior. I was nobody special. I was just a girl, scared and angry. When I saw myself in Daddy Glen's eyes, I wanted to die. No, I wanted to be already dead, cold and gone. Everything felt hopeless. He looked at me and I was ashamed of myself. It was like sliding down an endless hole, seeing myself at the bottom, dirty, ragged, poor, stupid.”