I Told You So

A Memoir by Skyflower

Told in fragments; dreams, blog entries, memories, monologues, and quiet realizations.

The story begins with childhood cancer and the loss of her leg, but that’s only the beginning. The real story is about everything that came after: the ache of being different, the loneliness of being misunderstood, and the slow unraveling between the part of me that wanted to live and the part that didn’t.

Ashley was twenty when she jumped out of a third-story dorm window.

Not to make a statement.

Not to be saved.

Just because she couldn’t carry the weight anymore.

I Told You So is the story of how she got there, and how she survived.

It’s about spiritual hunger that Sunday school couldn’t satisfy.

About imaginary idols made from scraps of wood, carried like talismans.

About art as a lifeline.

From hospital rooms to Southern pews to late-night drives under apocalyptic skies, this is a story of becoming, of what it means to break and still find beauty in the pieces.

The voice is bruised but bright.

Honest. Searching. Sometimes darkly funny. Always human.

I Told You So isn’t about blame.

It’s about bearing witness.

To your pain.

To your past.

To your becoming.

And daring to bloom anyway.

~77,500 words. For readers of

Heavy by Kiese Laymon

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton

and anyone who ever felt like too much, and not enough,

all at once.