This is not enough to do justice.

In a profile of me for her creative writing course, my friend called me the “girl alone in the riot-proof dorm.” That’s what the past year has been for me: solitude, safety, self-sufficiency. It is everything that seemed impossible less than two years ago.

Contentment is harder to express than the depression or rage of my nineteenth year. How do you say “I am happy” in any way but just that? Pain ...