《Wild》Cheryl Strayed

    We stood close together, face-to-face, my hands gripping the front of his coat.  I could feel the dumb ferocity of the building on one side of me; the gray sky and the white streets like a giant slumbering beast on the other; and us between them, alone together in a tunnel.  Snowflakes were melting onto his hair and I wanted to reach up and touch them, other's eyes as if it would be the last time.
    "Cheryl Strayed," he said after a long while, my new name so strange on his tongue.
    I nodded and let go of his coat.


    I'd done that so many times before.  I'd done it for years - every time I visited a beach after I fell in love with Paul when I was nineteen, whether we were together or not.  But as I wrote his name now, I knew I was doing it for the last time.  I didn't want to hurt for him anymore, to wonder whether in leaving him I'd made a mistake, to torment myself with all the ways I'd wronged him.  What if I forgave myself?  I thought.  What if I forgave myself even though I'd done something I shouldn't have?  What if I was a liar and a cheat and there was no excuse for what I'd done other than because it was what I wanted and needed to do?  What if I was sorry, but if I could go back in time I wouldn't do anything differently than I had done?  What if'd actually wanted to fuck every one of those men?  What if heroin taught me something?  What if yes was the right answer instead of no?  What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn't have done was what also had got me here?  What if i was never redeemed? What if I already was?