PART OF CREATING a new future, I think, is to be brave enough to deal with things in the past that just don’t work for you anymore—and, if you have to, to leave them behind. I had begun doing that even before I went to the trauma center.

For example, I had given family members an ultimatum: act like a loving family or forget it. Prove that you’re family by acting the way families should act, not by trying to get something out of me, and we’ll talk. Otherwise, good-bye.

Perhaps the most dramatic example that sums up that break with the past was when I officially and legally changed my name. I put the wheels in motion just about a year after we were rescued, around the time Finding Me was published. The author of that book had lived a life I could never separate myself from, but it was a life I certainly wanted to put behind me. A new future deserved a new name, and I chose one that reflected my love and my hopes: Lily for the flowers that brighten my life; Rose to honor the kindness my friend’s mother showed a lost little girl, me; and Lee, my son’s middle name, to honor him, the best thing in my life up to this point.

It turns out that changing your name is not that hard to do. In fact, my lawyer handled the whole thing, organizing most of the paperwork and appearing on my behalf at the hearing before a judge. I didn’t need to do a thing. In theory, the judge could have denied me the right to change my name—if I didn’t have an acceptable reason. But I certainly did, and the hearing did not last long. I was Michelle Knight when it started, and I was Lillian Rose Lee when it ended—a new name for a new life.

My decision to write my own account of my captivity rather than to team up with Gina and Amanda in a joint writing project was another break with my past life. But it was not the kind of rupture some people thought it was. The main reason I decided to write my own book was that there were differences in what happened to each of us in Castro’s house, and different experiences make for different stories. I was the first one he kidnapped, I had no family looking for me or worrying about me, I was held the longest, and I was treated the worst. It made sense for me to tell my own story my way and for them to tell theirs their way. In Finding Me, that is what I did, and in Hope, that is what they did, alternating their voices.

But the bond the three of us share is and always will be unbreakable. None of us chose for the bond to be formed. Survival required it. We went through terrible torture and suffering together—particularly Gina and I, who shared a room and sometimes were actually chained together. A connection like that can never be forgotten; it’s always there. But in a way, the same experience that bonded us now keeps us on separate paths. Once we were freed, I think we all felt the need to find our own way to healing. We’re all individuals, with our own personalities, our own character, and, of course, our own feelings. And we each need our own space.

The last time all three of us were together was in February 2014, when the governor of Ohio, John Kasich, honored us with the state’s Courage medals. We traveled to Medina for the event at the Performing Arts Center. We heard the governor praise our “inner strength and courage” in “staying strong and sticking together.” And we received a standing ovation that seemed to go on forever. There was no need for us to say much to one another, and we didn’t. But we hugged each other tight, and we all know we wish each other well.

I had a much different break with the past in mind when I came back from Tennessee and the trauma center. One was to break up with a guy I had been dating for a short while. It hadn’t been easy for me to begin dating, both because of my trust issues with men and because of all the travel. I didn’t have much time to get to know someone well. But certainly trust was the first stumbling block. I tried to overcome my reluctance because I didn’t want my past to affect me forever. I didn’t want it to keep me from ever talking to a man—or from ever thinking about having a relationship with a man. So when I met “Pete,” as I’ll call him, at the Corner Alley, I was at least open to talking with him. And in the beginning at least, I was flattered by his attention. Yet we had only been going out for a few weeks when I began to get the sense that he was a very controlling person. Possessive too, always wanting to know where I was, who I was with, what I was doing. As you can imagine, that did not go down well with me, and after just a few weeks—before we ever formed a real relationship at all—I simply told him that it wasn’t working out for me and that we needed to go our separate ways.

Besides, a while before, some friends on Facebook had told me about a friend of theirs on Facebook they thought I might like. I checked him out and thought he seemed very handsome in his photos. I liked what he said in his posts and in his responses to other posts. He struck me as soft and sweet, not disrespectful or angry, as so many people on Facebook seem to be. Also, his posts and photos showed him to be a guy who honored his family, especially his mother, and I thought that was great too.

But you know how these things go: I wondered if he really looked like his photo and if my Facebook first impression of him would turn out to be accurate. So at first I didn’t do anything about getting in touch with him. All I pretty much knew about him was that his name was Miguel.

I WAS READY to move on—and so ready to move out of my apartment! The truth is that I had been ready for some time. Only a few months of living downtown made me realize it wasn’t right for me. The area was way too busy. I couldn’t deal with the fast pace and constant activity.

I needed new surroundings and new friends. I knew I was drinking too much, still relying a little bit on alcohol to numb the memories that kept darting across my brain. It was hard not to, given the crowd I was running with. I was kind of tired of that crowd anyway. I still loved Jim and Kenny, still loved to meet up with Anita and Erna and go out on the town, but I was tired of those people I’ve described as “friends to my face but not behind my back.”

What’s more, the apartment management was giving me a hard time about having a dog, which I desperately wanted. First, they said no pets allowed at all; then they said it would be okay to have a small dog. How small? I wondered. Being limited in the number or size of pets just wasn’t my style at all.

Also, I was still being noticed as a “celebrity” just about everywhere I went in Cleveland. Even after a year I couldn’t walk down the street without people staring at me or stopping to ask if they could take a photograph. I felt I was being constantly watched and almost constantly judged. I had the sense that there were eyeballs on my back at all times.

Even all the traveling I had done for the book tour, although it opened new worlds to me, emphasized for me how much I wanted a home. I just wanted a peaceful place with a fenced-in yard where I could have dogs that could run free and I could walk out my back door in a bathing suit and not feel eyeballs on me.

My lawyer had found a real estate agent for me to work with, and off I went. We focused on a quiet, leafy suburb west of downtown Cleveland. I loved the first house I saw because it really looked like it was right in the forest, but it was carpeted from top to bottom, and I am totally allergic to anything except hypo-allergenic carpet. The minute I walked in, I started breaking out in hives. Obviously, ripping out all the carpets and maybe putting in all new flooring would take a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of money. Besides, you can’t buy the very first house you see, can you? I decided to keep looking.

The next house I saw had chains attaching the light fixtures to the walls and ceilings. Chains are an obvious trigger for me—and a terrible one. I got out of there pronto. Another house I looked at had a basement just like Castro’s, and I made a hasty retreat out of there as well.

I liked the next house a lot except for the color. It was kind of—pardon the expression—puke-green. Again, to repaint the whole outside would take time and money and, because it was already late fall, would probably have to wait until spring. I kept looking.

The next house had carpet in only a couple of places; I figured I could pull that up myself. It had a basement, but this one didn’t seem to bother me. All it really needed was a fence around the backyard. I found myself thinking about how I would make this house my own, so I made an offer, and, as everyone does, I waited.

Do you remember what it was like to buy your first house? Or if you never have, can you imagine how thrilling it would be? I was in my apartment, which was looking less and less appealing every day, and when the real estate agent called to tell me that my offer on the house had been accepted, I was ecstatic. I looked around at my apartment and almost said, “Bye bye” out loud. The deal was closed just a few weeks before Thanksgiving, and I moved in—just around Thanksgiving 2014.

To me it was exciting enough to watch the fence go up. I was super-excited to move in all my furniture from the apartment, everything matching everything else, and go out and buy some more, and spend my first night in my own bed in my own bedroom in my very own home. And it was more than exciting to get to work fixing up the whole place my way. I did a lot of the work myself, with help from the local landscaper, a guy named Shawn, who became a friend. We ripped out the little bit of carpet to find beautiful hardwood floors underneath; all they needed was some sanding and refinishing where they had warped or buckled. And we painted the rooms different colors—one sky blue, one peach, one orange, one forest green. For the living room I chose a vibrant red color for the walls. That’s when I got a lesson in how difficult it is to match red paint from bucket to bucket for big spaces. By the time we got to the second bucket, the mix was already shifty, and the whole wall began to look like a bunch of red patches. Forget this, I decided, and we painted the wall a creamy tan color that reminded me of the paper we got to draw on in kindergarten.

But soon after I moved in, as I was doing the various fixes and changes I had set my heart on, I began to notice the flaws. The first time it rained, I identified the leaking hole in the roof—that needed to be fixed right away. The first really cold day, when I could see my breath in front of me and crystallized ice on the windows even though the heat was on, I knew I would have to replace all the windows as soon as the weather was warm enough to do so. There were problems with the chimney, problems with the pipes. When I started having trouble breathing every time I went into the basement, I realized there was mold there. It had apparently been cleaned up just enough while the house was being shown to potential buyers, and now it was back like crazy. I pulled out the wall panels myself with a claw hammer and some muscle power, and there it was—black mold growing up and down the walls. Another disaster that had to be fixed.

Clearly I would need to spend the spring of the year fixing up the various disasters in my house. But I made a vow that for my next house, wherever and whenever it would be, I would not move in until I knew everything was just so.

Despite all the problems, I was not unhappy in this house. I loved the area, liked my neighbors—well, most of them—and was definitely able to walk out the back door in my bathing suit without feeling lots of eyeballs on me.

But then one day I went down to the basement as usual. It was dark down there, and I was feeling my way to the light switch when I suddenly got a spooky feeling. That particular trigger, igniting the terror of the basement in Castro’s house all over again, seemed to be back in a big way. Maybe it had never gone away. That’s it, I thought. I can’t go down there by myself again, and maybe I just can’t do basements anymore.

IN A WAY, it is funny that I “met” Miguel on Facebook. I had been somewhat suspicious of Facebook when I first learned about it. That was when I was back at the hospice, and I remember the shock I felt at all the negativity on display there. By now what bothered me was how wide open people were about sharing their feelings and thoughts and ideas. That sort of thing didn’t come at all naturally to me. I was a bit more cautious about opening up in that way to people I didn’t know.

So in my early days on Facebook I was more an observer than an active participant. I rambled around on the site, sometimes adding friends I knew from other places. It took a while before I started adding friends I had never met before, before I finally realized this was a good way to meet people and maybe make new friends. And why not make new friends? Little did I know that with so many of these new friends, we were going to have great conversations and end up finding that we had things in common with each other and liking each other.

That was my attitude the night I friend-requested Miguel. I was living in the house by then, just sitting around in my bedroom one night, trying to find something interesting to watch on television. I couldn’t find a thing, so I checked my phone for messages, then opened up Facebook and took another look at that good-looking guy I had come upon before I headed down to Tennessee. Hey, I thought, why not have a conversation with this guy, who seems so sweet, and see where it goes? Maybe we can build a friendship. Maybe it will turn into something more positive for me. Let’s do it, I decided. Let’s see what happens.

It is weird now, as I write this, to remember myself thinking those thoughts at that time. So much has happened since then.

From his point of view, as he told me later, he thought the friend request must be from an impostor. He couldn’t figure out why someone he knew about from newspaper headlines would be contacting him. Then he realized that, if it really was the person in the headlines, we probably knew some people in common on Facebook. That might explain why I was friend-requesting him. But even that was weird, because the people we knew in common on Facebook were just “acquaintances,” not real friends, so he too thinks it is weird that we actually managed to connect that way.

Weird or fate or just luck. If I had found something great to watch on television that night, or if he had decided I was an impostor and not worth answering, who knows if we would ever have connected? I don’t even want to think about that.

And obviously, we did connect. I had to wait a couple of days to get a response to my friend request because he was working odd hours at that time, while I was on the road a lot, so we were on crazily different schedules. But once we did connect, we just started messaging one another about our lives.

We’re both Cleveland natives, so we always had that in common, and we exchanged a bunch of photos on Facebook, and then after a while I really wanted to hear his voice, so I said to him, I’m sick of texting. Can you give me your number? Let’s call.

I can barely remember what we said on that first phone call. Nothing very significant. I remember not being surprised that he had a deep, really manly voice—and I remember liking it. I still do. I asked about his work, and he told me all about his experience in the Navy and his job as a medical courier. He also talked about the kind of music he liked—mostly country and rock ’n’ roll as well as rap that makes sense. We were on the phone for hours that night, just sharing basic stuff, likes and dislikes, thoughts and opinions, and it took off from there. Like I say, not an especially heavy conversation. It’s not like I got off the phone and shouted Awesome! But it was awesome to connect so comfortably and so easily with this guy I hadn’t ever clapped eyes on.

I define the connection between us as “spiritual.” Even before we met in person or saw one another, we could talk endlessly about the similarity between our lives, about issues with family, about what and how we thought about the things we both considered important in life. We told each other about the dreams we had had as kids and the dreams we had now, we talked about values, we gossiped, and we talked about our ideas of fun.

But I think what really helped seal the deal was that, by accident, we met in person at a restaurant one night. I was there to celebrate a friend’s birthday, and he was there to have dinner with some friends, but neither Miguel nor I had any idea the other was going to be in that place that night. In fact, I was on my way back from the ladies’ room and he was on his way to the men’s room, and I know I wasn’t paying attention to anything at all when suddenly we just bumped into each other. The recognition was instantaneous, thanks to the photos. But still, we had talked so much that when we actually introduced ourselves, my reaction was, Holy cow! You’re not a catfish! You’re actually real!

Of course, you need to know about the reality TV show Catfish to understand why I was pretty much blown away when I met Miguel in person. Each episode of the show is about two people who start a relationship online and then meet in person. Sometimes one of the two turns out not to have been honest in describing himself or herself: that’s a catfish. Sometimes both are catfish.

I think that when Miguel and I met at the restaurant that night we were both skeptical: Would the other one turn out to be the person we knew from talking on the phone hour after hour? Or would one or both of us be lying about ourselves? We were both relieved to discover the other was absolutely real, but our relationship still continued as a phone friendship for several weeks.

I know he thought I was naïve about a lot of things—the things that I had missed during eleven years as a captive in Castro’s house, the same way I had missed the TSA prohibition against liquids in your suitcase when you fly. He was very sweet and very patient about explaining those things to me: tablets, Instagram, Candy Crush—all sorts of stuff.

Of course, like everyone in Cleveland, he knew the basic facts about what had happened to the three of us in Castro’s house. But he never tried to push me into talking about what happened to me, as many people do. He made me feel very comfortable, and so in time I did open up to him. I told him about my childhood, about how I felt that both my parents abused me in different ways, and about the trauma of what I went through in Castro’s house. I waited a couple of weeks before I showed him a picture of my book, Finding Me. And I told him, “If you ever find the time, you can read a little bit of it.”

I loved his reply. He said, “I prefer not to. I would rather get to know you.” I thought that was very sweet. He knew who I was. He wasn’t going to rush me. I was struck by how gentle and kind he was.

I tried to take it slow in talking about my life. I waited for him to tell me that what he was hearing had gotten too hectic for him and that I had to slow down. “We have to do this in pieces,” he said to me. I realized that it was hard for him to process, hard for anyone to process. And I agreed we would take it slow.

In this way, our trust in one another grew and our affection deepened over time. By the time we got around to having our first actual date—by pre-arrangement, at a Thai restaurant, just the two of us on a cold January night in 2015—each of us was pretty sure we had found our soul mate. We just wanted to make sure it was real, and we were prepared, as I said, to “take it one day at a time and see where we go.”

The dinner was both romantic and matter-of-fact. The question was: Are we a couple? The answer was: Of course! Why not?

IT ISN’T like I had never been in love before. I had been madly in love with Joey’s father, Erik. In fact, one of the things I am particularly eager to tell my son when we do meet in person is that he was most definitely conceived in love. I may not have any idea what has become of Erik or where he is, but I know for certain that he and I were crazy about each other, enough so to defy bigots all around us who did not think a black boy and a white girl should be together.

But I was seventeen back then, and being madly in love wasn’t something that lasted forever. This, with Miguel, was different.

For one thing, I was older. I had been through a lot, obviously. I had survived a level of trauma that I have been told would have driven some people crazy and some people to take their own life. I had bent but had not broken.

I wasn’t optimistic about finding love after all I had been through. The whole world had heard the story of how I had been damaged by a filthy older man; even I wondered: Who would ever want me after that? How could anyone ever love me? I didn’t see how it could happen. But that didn’t mean I didn’t want to be loved. Everybody wants to be loved. I opened myself up to the possibility, and it happened. Miguel happened. He didn’t judge me for my past. He understood that the past had been done to me. He looked beyond that and saw who I really am—me. And he found what he saw beautiful.

As we sat at dinner in the Thai restaurant that night, we knew this wasn’t going to be an easy transition. There were practical reasons: he was a mostly nine-to-five guy, and I was on the road all the time giving talks and presentations. And there were deeper reasons: neither of us had ever made this kind of commitment before. But it just seemed right.

So in the early part of 2015 Miguel moved in. And over the next weeks and months our relationship had a chance to grow stronger and more rewarding day after day. We kept our relationship quiet for a while. Miguel’s close friends knew about us and were glad for him. Although not everybody felt that way, with every passing day we were more and more sure about what we had.

The first time I met his family wasn’t easy. I had met his sister first, but this time the whole extended family was there, at his uncle’s house, and that meant a large number of relatives. Miguel’s family is originally from Puerto Rico, so an abundance of warmth gets spread around at a family gathering. There were a lot of people there, and I think Miguel and I both felt we were a little bit on exhibit—I know I did. I had some delightful and pleasant conversations with some of the family and hit some very awkward moments with others. Somebody said to me, “You know, you can always go buy a baby.” That made me pull back hard; it was such a thoughtless thing to say. Another person joked that Miguel was “out for your money.” I didn’t find that funny at all. I really wanted to leave, but Miguel said we had to hang on a bit longer, so I just stayed silent and focused on the food, a selection of Spanish dishes that seemed to go on forever.

Miguel had warned me that his family was not all that affectionate. “Growing up,” he said, “it was tough love.” I guess neither of us got the family we would have liked as kids. So it meant even more to us that we now had each other.

Miguel is a quiet man. People around him can get boisterous and noisy, like when his whole family gets together, and he always manages to be calm. When you’re one on one with Miguel, he does not waste a lot of words and he means what he says. But the first time he told me I was beautiful, I had trouble believing him. I had always been told I was ugly. I had been bullied for being short, for my weight, my clothes, my hair. I had been called names that made fun of my looks. But when Miguel said the words, “You’re so beautiful,” I began to realize that he was talking about the me he saw deep inside. That was the me I hoped I was and wanted to be. If he could see that, I thought, maybe it’s true. Maybe I really am beautiful. Maybe I do deserve to be loved.

Physical intimacy didn’t happen right away, mostly because I had to let it develop on its own terms and at its own pace. We took it slow—getting close was a process. I felt the need to explain to Miguel that I had some issues. I had some fears that any intimacy might feel like what Castro had done to me, what others had done to me. We waited; we took our time. When it did happen, I realized I didn’t have anything to fear. The experience was entirely different. What made the difference was love.

And love is a two-way street. If he could see into the corners of my soul, I was aware of a certain darkness in him in those first months of our relationship. I knew that he was drinking every day and was having trouble controlling it. We talked about it. We both knew it was a problem. But that’s what alcohol can do to you: it controls you instead of the other way around. It all came to a head in the late fall of 2015.

We threw a Halloween party that year, and the next day Miguel woke up sick. Not just hungover sick, but really, really sick—sweating and shivering, with a 103-degree fever and his complexion turning gray. We rushed to the hospital. By the time we arrived, Miguel was barely responding. I was afraid I was going to lose him.

The doctors diagnosed a viral infection that had inflamed Miguel’s lymph nodes. But a deeper and more significant issue, revealed in a series of tests, was that his liver had been affected. Miguel spoke frankly to the doctors about his past alcohol abuse, how he would quit drinking, then start up again, time after time. With each “new” period of drinking, his tolerance level rose, so he would drink more. Over time that can be poisonous. What had brought him to the hospital, we realized, was not the drinking itself but his body telling him that he was poisoning himself. In a way, his body was saving his life by stopping in its tracks for a while.

A long while. Miguel was in the hospital nearly a month. I was there with him night and day. I canceled a number of speaking engagements and slept in a chair. I remembered what it is like to be alone in a hospital when you don’t really know what’s wrong with you. So I stayed.

Finally, one of the doctors told us the truth flat out. “If you don’t change the way you live,” this doctor told Miguel, “you’ll have cirrhosis of the liver within five years.” Miguel knew well what that meant: a relative of his had died of that disease. He made a vow to change his drinking habit.

It wasn’t easy. In fact, the change was pretty stressful. There were days when he would get what he called his “Damn I want a beer” feeling. But he didn’t give in. He stuck it out, tough as it was. And I was with him every step of the way. Today Miguel’s drinking consists of maybe a glass of wine on special occasions—and he mostly doesn’t finish it. I am so proud of him for beating this problem. As for me, I like a glass of wine each evening, and that’s it.

WE DECIDED we needed a vacation—a break from what we had been through over the past several months and a change of scenery. It was very nearly winter, but we rented a cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains, about as beautiful a place as there is and a great way to escape city life, which is just what we did.

One evening I noticed that instead of turning on the light switch, Miguel had set out candles instead. Also, he had tuned the radio to some soft, romantic music. And then he got down on his knees. “Honey,” he said, “don’t be mad at me. I had planned to surprise you and propose to you, but”—he hesitated, then burst out—“I grabbed the wrong bag and left the ring at home!”

My heart was so full of love for him and excitement for us both that I couldn’t say a word. Miguel went on: “But I still want to do this,” he said.

So, still on his knees, he did. He told me that he could not see his life without me in it and that he wanted me to be a part of his life forever.

“Will you marry me?” he asked.

You know I did not hesitate, did not skip a beat. “Yes,” I said. “I will.”

The thing I once thought could never happen for me had happened: love, and now marriage. To me it all seemed most definitely official: everything you need for getting engaged except the ring. And really, why do you need a ring anyway?

FAST FORWARD to the day of Christmas Eve back home in Cleveland. I had been to a movie with a friend and came home to hear from Miguel that the dogs had torn up our Christmas tree and made a mess of all the ornaments.

I just groaned. Christmas is one of my favorite times of year, and it was frustrating to think it had gotten messed up. That’s the word Miguel had used: mess. So I walked into the living room to see just how big the mess was.

“Where’s the mess?” I asked Miguel.

“You have to get closer,” he said.

I moved closer to the tree. “Where?” I said. I couldn’t see any ornaments at all.

“Closer,” Miguel said.

Then I saw that one of my favorite ornaments, a little Baby Jesus, had been knocked off the tree onto the track of the little railroad that goes around our Christmas tree. I looked closer. Still closer. And I saw that Baby Jesus was holding a ring.

I burst into tears. Couldn’t help it.

“Lily Rose Lee, will you marry me?” Miguel asked again.

I was crying too hard to talk, so for an answer I put the ring on. It fit perfectly.

We were now totally “officially engaged.” We could even set the date for our wedding. By my choice, it would be May 6, 2016, the third anniversary of my rescue, the start of me being “reborn” as Lily Rose Lee. Because it was now Christmas 2015, that meant we had less than five months to plan everything.