Five interviews.
One day.

Five strangers asking the same questions.

“What did they do?”

“How did they hurt you?”

I tell it.

Then I tell it again.

And again.

Each time feels like peeling my skin off in front of them,

like I am a story to be studied

instead of a girl trying not to drown.

By the end I didn’t even feel real anymore.

Just an echo.

Just tired.

And then, school.

Not just school.

Junior year.

They dropped me into crowded hallways

where everyone already knew each other.

Friends since kindergarten.

Inside jokes I couldn’t get.

Seats already taken at every table.

Everyone moving like they had a map,

and me

just trying not to get lost.

I don’t know how to laugh at the right time.

Don’t know how to catch up

when I haven’t even been given the same start.

Teachers talk about things I’d never learned,

like I was supposed to already know.

I sit here feeling stupid,

like a puzzle missing too many pieces,

and everyone else could see the holes.

Lunch is the worst.

Where do you sit when you don’t belong anywhere?

Every glance felt like a spotlight.

Every whisper felt like it was about me.

And underneath it all

the bites.

Red, swollen welts covering my arms, my legs, my neck.

Bedbugs had claimed me in my parents house,

and no amount of scratching

could make me clean again.

I clawed at myself until I bled

because maybe if I dug deep enough

I could rip out the filth.

But it’s not the bugs I hate.

It’s me.

I look in mirrors and saw

someone unwanted.

Someone disgusting.

Someone wrong.

Some nights I dream about silence,

the kind you don’t come back from.

I am begging life

to just let me stop.

 

Now — Ten Years Later

When I look back at her,

I still feel every ache in my chest.

That girl who was bitten, bruised, and out of place

thought she wouldn’t make it.

But she did.

I did.

It wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t easy.

Healing isn’t a straight line.

It was years of pulling myself out of the same memories, years of fighting voices that weren’t mine,

years of learning how to live when all I’d ever done was survive.

Motherhood broke me open in new ways.

It taught me softness I’d never known,

but it also ripped open old scars.

Holding my daughter,

I’d hear the echoes:

“You’re too much.

You’re unfit.

You’re broken.”

And I had to fight,

not just for me,

but for her.

To make sure she grew up knowing safety,

knowing love,

knowing she never had to shrink herself

just to be allowed to exist.

I worked harder than I thought possible.

To build a marriage where love doesn’t bruise.

To build a home where crying isn’t dangerous.

To build a life where my daughter will never wonder

if she is too much.

Because survival wasn’t the end of my story.

It was the beginning.

This is my second page.

Thank you for turning it with me.

 

—Tiffany🤍