She read the list silently while I used the leftover paper to doodle circles. She asked what I wanted to talk about first. I suggested we start with No. 1 and work our way down. After our first session, I rolled up the paper and kept it in my locker. My secrets weren't safe in my home.

My family talked about everything, and had little to no interest in holding back in front of children, as long as we didn't try to add to the conversation. On multiple occasions, I'd heard members of my family express concern about children who'd been molested, that they may have been "turned out" by their abusers. "Turned out," meaning the abuser changed your sexuality, changed what you wanted. Broke you. I still remember sitting in my grandmother's kitchen while she held court for a few of her friends, their nods of agreement and emphatic waves of the hand. Chile, I know that's the truth. She'd flit back and forth between the stove, the oven, and the counter where she mixed everything by hand. The conversation secondary to her meal preparation, but primary to me. Her lip curled in disgust at the thought of such a thing.

"These people need help! They get scared of men, see? What kind of normal woman wants to feel on and kiss on another woman? Gotta be something that happened there." Shudders waved through the room. I faked one, even though I wasn't supposed to be listening. If the rest of the room recoiled, and you didn't, you just branded yourself The Weird One, the opposition. Even I knew that. I made it my job to know.

For me, the message was clear: The fact that I liked girls meant something had happened to me. I was broken. So broken, in fact, that I didn't even hate the man who kissed me. I'd known him most of my life before it happened. I remembered him as good. Or at least good to me. I told my counselor I thought I liked girls because he kissed me. He wasn't supposed to, and I knew it. She asked me if I liked girls before that happened. I lied and told her I couldn't remember.

For weeks, I sat on the floor of her office and we circled around the same topics. I confessed to my counselor with faith in her ability to fix me. Her opinion — her forgiveness — was all I needed to know that even if I wasn't OK, I could be OK. I could get this right.

Nights were still bad for me. It was getting easier to fall asleep without crying myself there, but my dreams were more like shards of glass than complete images. New Year's Eve. Him walking into the room. Hi, Ashley. His smile. Him slipping a dollar bill into my 7-year-old hand. My family one room over. My smile. Him asking for a kiss. The back of my head hitting the cold patio door. His face crushed into mine, eyes screwed shut. His hands under my nightgown. His tongue. My body suddenly numb. Not telling my mother. Not telling anyone.

This was what made me want to touch girls the same way I wanted to touch boys? When I woke up from those dreams, I didn't want to touch anybody.

Finally, I asked my counselor the question I'd been avoiding for weeks. What did she think about me liking girls? Did she think it meant I was damaged?