Birnam Wood: A Novel

Shelley had lived for as long as she could remember in perpetual dread of being dislikeable – a fate even more terrible than being disliked, for it encompassed not only her relationships with others, but her private judgments of herself.

She had tried to escape it by joining Birnam Wood, and she was trying to escape it now, but she would never escape it, because she could not feel the difference, could not understand the difference, between running towards something, and running away.