She spent 17 years trying to save her soul and now she finds she can't get out.

She was an innocent, albeit a slightly disturbed one. She found her fun on Saturday nights at the clubs dancing and moving to the rhythm. She knew the good DJs from the poor ones by sound and not reputation. Before she lost her soul, she used to find it every morning rocking with the music and writing. Always writing.

Then one day she took home one of the boys from the clubs and he was nice enough in many nice ways. She really liked it that he was really clean, neat, and organized. It wasn't so important that he wasn't as educated as she or that he didn't know how to behave when her rich friends came round. He became a bit like a puppy dog and followed her everywhere and she let him.

Then one day she found herself pregnant and she found her puppy dog no longer wanted to sleep at the foot of her bed and he ran away. Three months into the pregnancy she was alone and didn't want the baby. She made an appointment with the clinic but something about her Catholic upbringing kicked in and she couldn't go through with it. She decided to give it up for adoption and made the arrangements. Give away her baby. Her baby. Then the 2nd trimester came and the baby really started to kick and she started to regret. Then the baby came and it was...beyond her wildest expectations. The connection she felt to that small creature was so pure and beautiful. But she convinced herself it was just hormones and the right thing was to stay to plan and give up the baby. Day after day her heart ached and she wanted to kidnap her own baby back. But it was not her baby anymore. So she cried and she drank and she wrote and she wrote.

Year after year went by and her friends said she always looked so tired. Which was true, she was. Sleep came in fits and she often had dreams of a small warm body next to her in the bed and then she woke up to find her bed cold and empty.

She gave her baby a name, Angela, and pretended to speak to her every night before she fell asleep. "What did you draw today?", "Oh, what a pretty flower", "I miss you", "I am so sorry".

Years passed. One day she saw her old puppy dog with another woman and a three year old in toe. They looked really happy. She followed them home and stalked them for days. She fantasized about breaking into the state's sexual predators database and inserting his name.

Day by day, month by month, year by year passed. She was an addict and her drug of choice was misery. She had no relationship lasting more than a night or two and no friends to speak of. Her longest relationship was probably with the cashier at Starbucks who didn't even know her name.

Somehow 17 years passed. She received a letter from her daughter. It stopped her cold. First, the picture. Then the words. A daughter who want to make a connection. She wrote back with ease but stopped herself from mailing it. She went to the box she kept in her closer behind the winder clothes. In the box was a letter for each birthday from one to seventeen. She reread each letter and then crafted a new one.

She had found her soul. It was damaged for sure, but there. And she could make little steps toward forgiveness.