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I learned how to show myself compassion. I learned how to reach out for help.

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the answer is the same.

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I remember him. I remember him well. Mainly, I remember how this experience made me feel.

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You did not want this to happen. You didn’t ask for it. You only said no.

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Blame genetics. Blame evolution. Blame her parents. Blame the planets for the way that they aligned in the sky that night.

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It was a rainy, spring evening when I got the call. It was my mom who told me. She had heard it through a friend of a friend.

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He was a boy and I was a girl; that was the obvious difference between the two of us.

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The burden is not yours to carry, but you carry it anyway.