Returning home after my epiphany, after realizing that I had already descended into the netherworld, I felt an odd sense of release. It was not a good feeling, but it created a physical impetus I’d never experienced.
There was no one—not parents, not school, not Dr. Dunfey, not even God—who cared what I did now. The shackles that had held me in place all my life had burst apart, and they lay where I had tossed them, at the bottom of the Hudson River.
I dropped my backpack where I stood and threw my overcoat across a chair in the foyer; who cared whether I hung it up or not? I placed a call to my favorite Chinese restaurant and ordered everything I wanted on the menu, not caring whether there would be what Mother had called "a complete meal" in the combination, not caring how many hungry
