Accepting My Mom’s Limits
When I was 8 years old, I asked my mother why I’d never met her parents. She said, “My dad was a very cruel man, and every night, he would come into my room and do terrible things to me. My mother knew, and she did nothing to help me.” When she was in 4th […]
Read MoreI Had to Leave
It was November 2019, an ash-gray morning. The car smelled like gas. I was in a new school for 7th grade, and my mom was driving me there. Neither of us had eaten anything. I could tell she was stressed and angry. Suddenly she was shouting at me. I can’t remember why, but I remember […]
Read MoreThe Road to Acceptance at 16.5
It’s an early summer day in June, the last day of finals. There’s a funny sort of feeling, when school ends. You stare out the window in class, glimpsing the beautiful promise of the outdoors, inhaling that sweet smell of possibility. After leaving on the last day, I was driving around with my older sister, […]
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