“The shell was there, waiting for her, and part of her wanted to crawl into it. She didn’t fault herself for that part of her, though, because she finally understood the shell wasn’t necessarily a horrible thing. It was a protective mechanism, that was all. It had kept her alive and functioning when the world wanted to poke and hurt her. It was a part of her, and maybe not a part of herself that she needed to find disgusting or bad.”
