I toss back a handful of bar nuts and sip my ginger ale. By all rights, my ass should be safely tucked away in my hotel room, not out killing time at some dive. Tomorrow’s the most monumental game of my life. And on the eve of the biggest night of my life, I hope he can see me. He died fifteen years ago when I was six, but in the biggest moments, the ones that count the most, it feels like he’s with me. I fear that I, like them, will not live to regret it. As the stars dim and the darkness encroaches, I understand I’m like those who stayed too long, blindly assuming their survival. A light I should have acknowledged long ago. Like a gale-force wind, he blows over me.Īs the world goes black, I see stars.

His fury, his rage rush at me like a wall of water. I witness the exact moment when this monster loses all restraint. We frantically gathered our things, fled our home for higher ground.

I later saw the devastation left in the wake of the beastly storm. Though I was safe in my ward when the monster lost all restraint and unleashed watery havoc on New Orleans, I lived in the city. With that said, there are aspects of this story that may be sensitive for some readers.įor Natalie, Paula & every woman who ever I hope I wrote this story from a place of grace and compassion that wouldn’t have been possible without the generosity and vulnerability of those with whom I spoke.

After many interviews, much research and some soul searching, I hope I understand better. So I started talking with women who had walked that path. I write when I have something to say, and I knew I couldn’t say it from a place of judgment and hypotheticals. I started writing this book two years ago out of righteous indignation on behalf of a young woman whose journey I didn’t understand. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book.

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