I was safe in this world. This was a place for creatures—I felt I had become more of a creature than a girl. I could handle myself in the wild.

I was no longer following a trail.

I was learning to follow myself.

Childhood is a wilderness.

Living as Wild Child, I could no longer be Debby Parker comfortably — this name that I’d been given at birth that defined me before I’d had the chance to define myself.

It felt amazing to make visible my boundaries.

The rumors dissipated, then changed. Eventually I turned down enough men that I became the girl who turned down men.

I walked home holding Tom’s hand, not letting it go even as he tottered across a soccer field where there was nothing that could hurt him.