The Rest of High School and the Light at the End of the Tunnel

Sophomore year I pretty much laid low and nothing too dramatic happened. The craziest thing that happened was probably our car getting repo-ed in front of everyone during a family reunion at our house. HAHAHAHAA. I’m telling you we had no money. The rest of the year it was just the usual craziness from my parents but nothing I can remember super well. I didn’t ask to go out much since I knew the answer would be no. I mostly remember doing a lot of chores and sleeping in a lot. My parents didn’t care if I missed school or was late all the time. They even wrote me notes to clear me for missing school! They didn’t care about grades. It was kind of crazy. They just cared about keeping me on house arrest. It was easier to just do what they wanted me to instead of fight it at this point because one time I had had enough and started packing my bag to move in with my mom. My stepmom flew into a rage and started throwing my entire closet into my bag and told me if I left I could never come back. Lol. I should’ve taken her up on that. I didn’t know at that point that her word meant nothing. I was still young and afraid. My step siblings and I had also grown pretty close. I didn’t want to not be able to see them again. She knew her words would work on me. I unpacked my bag and told her to never threaten me like that again.

My stepmom got super bed ridden due to severe back pain that year and I took care of her a lot. I have no idea why but I was the only one who did. I think her kids were sick of how her back was always “broken” and they were just over it. She started being nicer to me, though. The house kind of fell apart because she couldn’t do the basic things that mom’s usually do. My stepsister and I did everything. My stepsister was used to this, though. Poor thing basically had to be the mom growing up. 

My stepmom’s mom died and her dad moved in with us as well that year. He was a chainsmoker and super old. I was always home bc house arrest and he was always home too so we spent a lot of time together and I took him with me everywhere. (Mostly because I was 15 and a half with my driving permit and had to have an adult in the car so I could drive legally.) We ended up getting really close. He saw how I was being treated and was my biggest cheerleader. He knew I wasn’t a failure and that I was going to do something with my life. He always checked up on me out of genuine love. Even to this day I’m the only picture he keeps in his medicine bag. I don’t think my stepmom liked that. Hahaa. 

Ok so remember when I said that my stepmom was from AZ and constantly compared where we lived in California to AZ? After two years her obsession never went away. There was no better place in the world than Gilbert, Arizona. The people were nicer, the city was cleaner, the houses had pools, the kids were innocent, the schools had higher ratings, there was Chick Fil A. And, since my stepmom pretty much always got her way, they said they got a “prompting” they needed to move, my dad found a job that was going to expand to that location, and we moved the summer after my sophomore year. Tbh, I was actually kind of excited to move. Although I knew I’d miss my friends terribly, I knew my stepmom was convinced every kid in AZ was an angel so I’d be able to finally go out and maybe have somewhat of a highschool experience that didn’t involve being chained to my house. 

When choosing where to live my parents looked at a few different places but ultimately felt “prompted” to move into a house in one of the most prestigious neighborhoods. It was probably the nicest house I had ever seen. It was too good to be true...because it was. Here’s the catch: rent was 4k a month and we had no money. They were banking on paying for everything with the money my dad’s job would end up bringing in. They somehow got chosen by the landlords and we moved in. My dad’s job offer was rescinded shortly after. Awesome. But we didn’t move out. They somehow managed to come up with the money each month and we scraped by. I don’t know all the details but they decided to become life coaches to make money (HAAA. I’m sorry?) and do contract business consulting jobs here and there. OHHHH and since we moved away from my mom, my dad and stepmom somehow got it worked out and settled in court before we left that my mom had to pay all the child support for me up front. (If you’re not familiar with how this works, the parent who makes more money pays the one who makes less.) They settled on 50k in child support to be exact. 50k that was supposed to go to me directly and be used only for/on me. Did it? Of course not. I never saw a dime. THAT, I think, is probably how they made it work. That is, until that ran out. Which it did very quickly. I’ll get to that part later, though.

I remember the ward we moved into being INCREDIBLE. They were all super strong, successful, happy, functional, and pretty families. It was full of doctors, lawyers, farmers, and successful entrepreneurs. There were also 75 youth in the ward and they all sang like angels. I had never seen anything like it. It was a different world. I wanted to be a part of it so bad but it was super hard to relate to. I mostly felt like I was on the outside looking in. Oh, and there were So. Many. White people. That was also something to get used to. 

That fall I started school at a very new high school. It was clean, bright, and shiny. Although I was having fun meeting new people and making new friends, after a little bit I started to feel like I didn’t exactly fit in. I just didn’t blend in and people all kind of looked the same. This was weird to me because in northern California exotic was considered pretty. No one paid much attention to race since diversity was so normal. In AZ there was one general type or “look” that people seemed to like best and it was blonde barbie showing lots of tanned skin. I did not look like their type at all except for maybe the tanned skin but I definitely wasn’t allowed to show it despite the scorching heat. I ended up making friends with the only black people at my school which is kind of hilarious to me. They were the best and they weren’t originally from AZ either so we just got each other. 

I was allowed to hang out with anyone because my stepmom was convinced everyone was a good person in AZ. (“Good person” in my parents’ book meant no affiliation with sex, drugs, or alcohol.) These kids were no different than people at my previous school, though. They were just inexperienced. They just hadn’t done any of that stuff yet. That was the only difference. 

I still mostly hung out with my stepsister, though. I had learned back during my freshman and sophomore year that I was always safe if I was with her. We both knew that her mom would never get mad at her or punish her for anything so if there was ever a situation that could possibly get me in trouble and she was there then I knew I was in the clear. It was hard to accept but she protected me in that way. So, thank goodness we stopped hating each other and decided to get along. We created a friend group and had a ton of fun together that year. I was so grateful I had her. It was like having a built in best friend. It didn’t matter to me if I had other friends tbh. 

I don’t think I mentioned this previously but I played softball my freshman year of high school. I was a pitcher and I was decently good but I ended up quitting because I hated the coach so much. When I got to my new school, they somehow found out I played softball and was a left handed pitcher. They begged me to try out. I didn’t want to but I saw it as a way out of the house and out of all the chores that were constantly being piled on me. My stepmom’s kids never really did chores because she had this weird belief that since they worked so hard at their extracurricular things that it was too much for them to do that and chores too. One of my step sisters was a gymnast who spent hours at the gym 6 days a week. One of my step brothers was a basketball player who played club ball but honestly who TF knows what he was doing all the time. (He was always going back and forth from his dad’s house constantly and pretty much did/got away with whatever he wanted.) My older step sister was in cosmetology school which meant tons of hours of school. So that always left me. And since I didn’t have anything but school, I got all the chores. Let me remind you, our house was HUGE and we had a family of 6-8 at any given time. Do you know how many dishes or how much laundry that generates??! I became the only one that had to get any real chores done before I could go somewhere. My other siblings just had to clean their rooms before they could go out. (Shouldn’t that be a given?) My older step sister had to do more than that but the other 3 were always off the hook. So, to avoid this misery and play by my stepmom’s rules, I gladly took up softball again. Then I quit after the season and got a job instead. The most brilliant move on my part. 

Senior year rolled around. I forgot to mention earlier that all the friends I made when I moved to AZ were a year older than me so my first day of my senior year felt like I was the new kid all over again. I had to make all new friends again. It was okay. I had done it before. Being new makes you interesting. You also gain a new sort of empathy for others who have to go through it. Making new friends isn’t super hard. It’s finding the kind that fill your soul and make you laugh til it hurts that are hard to find. Thankfully I found that in 3 people in my business stats class. 2 of them were new and the four of us bonded over a monopoly project. We all ended up going through a lot that year and we held each other together. They were angels for me.

I got my first real boyfriend my senior year. We went to different schools and I met him through this personal athlete training place where my sister and I were working out at. I was convinced he liked my sister at first but one day we ended up texting each other while both on terrible dates with other people and decided to ditch our dates to meet up. He picked me up and the rest was history. I fell hard and fast for him. He had the most beautiful face I had ever seen and he was so, so sweet. He was kind of artsy but also a baseball player. He didn’t smoke and he drank socially maybe once or twice a year. He lived alone with his dad and drove a truck. He was always just so happy and positive. Oh, he was so sweet to me. 

He wasn’t Mormon and my parents really liked him at first because they had met him before we started dating but once we started, he became associated only with me and they stopped liking him real quick. It was awful. I honestly felt like I could never like something or someone too much or it/they would be taken away. The answer would become “no” at some point. It was what I was used to so I started trying to stop myself from liking things too much.

The fact that he wasn’t Mormon didn’t seem like a huge issue to me. He knew what it was and had lots of friends that were Mormon. But our standards were definitely different and some of them he didn’t completely understand like the no sex part but he still respected it. He definitely wasn’t a virgin. That freaked my parents out for sure. But he never pressured me to do anything. 

One time he picked me up from the airport and we were all over each other from being apart for a week. He got under my shirt (not under my bra) and, because my parents had somehow brainwashed me into thinking it was normal for kids to tell their parents EVERYTHING, I told on myself again and of course got punished. I’m such an idiot. My stepsister told her mom everything but her and her mom were BFFs and there was trust there. I thought and hoped that that same trust and confidance would be offered to me too but I was very wrong. Also, my dad had trained me to feel flaming, scorching guilt for anything remotely even close to the line because sex was second to murder, remember? 

After that, we weren’t allowed to be alone ever. That meant traveling from place to place as well. Mind you, I didn’t have a car and I lived about 10-15 mins across town from him. Now if we ever wanted to hang out it either had to be at my house or he had to go pick up whatever couple was going on the group date with us (usually they lived near him) and then drive all the way across town to pick me up and then drive to wherever the date was going to be (usually back over on his side of town). This was typically a 30-40 minute ordeal. CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE HOW AWFUL. Like so much gas money, wasted time, and inconvenience. I felt SO bad. It put a huge strain on our relationship for sure. 

During that time we were so poor and I worked a lot because I was tired of it. I was the only person who had a job in my family. My parents didn’t have jobs. I don’t even know how we had survived so long even with my child support money. Because I had a job, family members were always asking to “borrow” money from me. I couldn’t say no so I started keeping tally to make sure I got paid back. I was told by my parents that that was evil because you’re supposed to just give of your substance freely especially to family. SORRY? I DIDN’T GO TO SCHOOL AND THEN WORK 5 NIGHTS SO I COULD GIVE YOU MY MONEY. As a parent, I feel like it’s your job or at least should be your goal to help your kids out as much as you can. Not take advantage of them. My stepmom had the opposite perspective. She believed that kids were supposed to take care of their parents. Physically and monetarily. Okay MAYBE WHEN THEY’RE OLD AND RETIRED? NOT when they're only 40 like in her case?!? LOL 

I gave up on my siblings paying me back but I at least expected my parents to. My dad and stepmom ended up owing me about $700-$1000 by the end of highschool. My dad tried reconciling the debt in different ways but they couldn’t (or maybe wouldn't) pay it back. Crazy, man.

We had 2-3 crappy cars and 5 drivers in the family and a million places to go. I got dropped off at work a lot. We also had someone living with us at all times for some reason. Whether it was a family member or a friend in need. There was always someone living with us. This year it was a friend who had a daughter. The friend helped out a lot since she lived with us for free. She cooked and cleaned and picked up family members that needed to be picked up sometimes. One night, my parents forgot to pick me up from work. I had worked a closing shift and I was exhausted from being on my feet for hours. They sent this friend to come get me. I got in the car and could immediately tell something was wrong with her. She looked absent behind her eyes and her reactions were delayed. She tried pulling left out of the parking lot while someone else was turning left into the parking lot. They clearly had the right of way. I screamed as we almost got T-boned. Both vehicles somehow managed to stop inches away from each other. The guy almost got out of his car to come beat her up. I just looked at her and she kept saying over and over that that guy was an A-hole as she drove off. We continued down the road and I was very afraid at this point. She was driving weirdly slow too. I kept asking her if she was okay as she swerved in and out of lanes. She kept saying she was fine. I began to panic and fear for my literal life. We got onto the second main road that would take us straight to my house where there was a ton of construction. We drove on the wrong side of the road for a good 3 minutes. The whole time I was begging her to pull over and to let me drive. She kept asking why I was screaming and why I was so scared. I considered jumping out of the car because I didn’t know how much longer our luck would last. I just kept praying and praying we’d make it home safely. When she drove past the turn to my house my heart sank and seized with fear at the same time. I started trying to talk to her like she was a child. Almost coaxing her to drive home. She kept saying she couldnt. This nightmare just wouldn’t end. When she had slowed down enough, I unbuckled my seatbelt super fast and jumped out of the car. I ran as fast as I could to the back gate of our gated community as she yelled for me to get back in and to please not tell my parents. I couldn’t get in through the gate because I needed a clicker and my damn parents wouldn’t answer their phones either. I was going to destroy them when I finally got to them. I climbed the tall gate in my tight hostess skirt and flats and flew into my house. I found them lounging in the backyard while a bunch of my sibling’s friends were over having a little party. Just king and queen on their attention thrones oblivious and careless to the fact that I almost died. I don't remember what I said to them but I was boiling. They couldn’t be responsible for just one second?!?! “I almost died. You guys almost killed me. That person was NOT okay and you sent her to come get me. How could you?!?” I started crying. They didn’t know what I was talking about. They thought she was acting fine when she left. They found out later she had been using. So we had a drug addict living with us the whole time. Awesome! I just found it so hypocritical and ironic that my stepmom could somehow could “know” or assume all of the “bad” things I was “doing” or “going to do” because the “Spirit” told her but when a literal DRUG USER was living in our house the “Spirit” didn’t tell her then. RIDDLE ME THAT.  

Around the end of 2012 the money ran out due to their terrible spending habits and we were going to be evicted. Then they somehow figured out that there was black mold in the house. That was their ticket. They sued the landlord. But those kinds of things take a lot of time. The money doesn’t come right away. They couldn’t afford the place anymore and they had claimed it was uninhabitable so that left us with no where to go. They had declared bankruptcy somewhere along the way as an easy way out of all their debt so they had no credit either. No one would take them and they didn’t have the money to rent anyways. So we moved in with a family that lived another 10-15 mins further from my boyfriend. Joy. Also, I didn’t know this constituted homelessness until I talked with my guidance counselor at school. I just let it slip somehow one time while we were talking about college applications and scholarships that I didn’t have an address right now. I explained the situation and that we were living with friends and she told me that that was considered homeless. News to me! Now it made sense why it felt SO CRAPPY. Also, I never told my mom about us being homeless til much later. My dad and stepmom were always telling me about all the “bad things” she did to “hurt my dad.” I was so worried that she would do something really bad to my dad if she knew about this and I wanted to protect him so I never said a word. I still don’t understand myself.

During this homeless time, my step siblings mainly lived at their dad’s house. If they didn’t, we all slept together on mattresses that had been laid in a row on the floor of this family’s upstairs loft. Most of the time it was just me and my youngest step brother who stayed there. This was one of the most depressing times of my life and I didn’t even know it. I was just so focused on surviving. Everything was so out of control. I was still the only person in my family with a job, I was on the free lunch program at school, it was senior year - the year I had been looking forward to my whole life, and we were homeless just in time for prom. Thankfully I had saved for that. It might sound so ridiculous but I had always dreamed of going to prom, not my wedding...prom. This time I had a boyfriend and it was supposed to be perfect. But how could it during a time like this?

Remember when I said God sends angels? Prom tickets were crazy expensive at my school and I had no idea how I was going to afford them along with the rest of prom’s expenses. I wasn’t going to make my boyfriend pay for both! My angel friend who had a boyfriend that was 4 years older than us won tickets from winning our school’s prom fashion show and gave them to me. She still probably has no idea how much that meant to me. Because of her, I got my dream of going to prom. I actually got to go to two proms and I had a hot boyfriend which made it that much sweeter. I also somehow was able to afford two dresses and alterations to make them both modest. (Which I now don’t even know why I did because I was the one paying for them so I should’ve been able to wear them however I wanted. But the instilled shame got me again!) I did my own hair and makeup and drove myself to all the pre-prom photos. My parents didn’t even come to those. It was my first, last, and only proms ever. Hahaha. Idk, man.   

The time to apply to colleges came and I knew I needed to go to a BYU. Not because my parents were making me. This actually was my own decision. I also had a couple of friends who went there and they said they loved it. I knew there was a chance I wouldn’t get in due to grades (I had screwed myself my freshman and sophomore year) and the fact that I hadn’t graduated from seminary. I figured I probably should have some plan B schools but when I told my parents that they said that in order to show God my trust, I should only apply to the one school I wanted to go to- BYU. I told one of my best friends and my guidance counselor what my parents has said and they both said that sounded absolutely stupid and insane. My best friend told me I needed to apply to BYU Idaho too. That was just what you did as the back up and then you could transfer after a year if you wanted. My guidance counselor started shoving applications to in-state schools at me and made me apply to those too. Hahaha. Angels, man. 

I ended up not getting into BYU just as I suspected but that didn’t make it any less devastating. THANK GOD AND HIS ANGELS I hadn’t listened to my crazy parents and had a plan B. I decided I’d go to BYU Idaho in the fall even though I really didn’t want to and then transfer after two semesters. 

My parents somehow managed to get into another rental about 15 mins up the road from our old house a month or so before I graduated and I finished out senior year in an actual house. It was still really far from my boyfriend so that was hard but I finally saved up enough to buy a cheap car and I thought all of our problems would be solved from there. I was wrong. 

It started to get really obvious that my parents didn’t approve of him and the fact that he wasn’t Mormon. Their judgementalness got so uncomfortable for him and for me and it was sad. He was the sweetest guy. So undeserving of that kind of treatment. They were doing exactly what members of our church get a bad rap for which infuriated me because they preached the opposite and embraced every other nonmember that walked through the door. I knew that it had to do with me but their hypocrisy was still absolutely infuriating.

I could tell he didn’t want to be at my house anymore. He told me he didn’t feel welcome. From there it felt like I was watching something fall apart in my hands. What was once solid was now running through my fingers like sand and there was nothing I could do to stop it. He broke up with me a few days before graduation with the lame but reasonable excuse that we would have to break up at the end of summer anyways since I was going away to college in the fall. I swore off relationships for the next year and sobbed my way through grad practice and most of the next few months.

Up until this point, I had never felt so broken in my life. Yes, hard things had happened to me but none of them had been able to bring me to my knees like this. I’d sit in the corner, silently crying, unable to eat or move. It was a new kind of pain I had never felt before and it was overwhelming. I thought I would die from the heartbreak.

The brainwashing started wearing off. I started not caring anymore. About anything. The broken in me made me reckless. I tried to distract myself with new people, lose myself in photography, numb myself with other things like cliff jumping. But those things only worked to a certain extent.    

In the meantime I had started to patch things up with my mom. I think I had matured a little and as the brainwashing wore off I thought maybe she wasn’t as horrible as they had made her out to be. I knew by this point that there are two sides to every story so who knows if they were actually telling the truth.

My mom told me that she would pay for half of college expenses if I would agree to come visit her every other holiday and if my dad would pay for the other half. I brought this up to my dad and he told me that her money would surely have strings attached and the fact that me visiting her was one of the stipulations was already a bad sign. He somehow convinced me that her wanting me to visit her was manipulative and conditional when THAT IS A COMPLETELY REASONABLE AND RATIONAL REQUEST. HOW??? Plus I was 18 at this point so me seeing her didn’t benefit her monetarily at all! He told me that he would pay for half and I could cover the other half with what I had saved up and then there would be no strings attached. I believed him and didn’t want her to be able to hold anything over my head so I told her thanks but no thanks. I got it and dad would pay for the other half. My mom was VERRRRY surprised. “Are you sure?” She asked. “Yes. Thank you but dont worry about it, mom.” 

A week or two after my boyfriend had broken up with me I was still in pieces and my dad dropped the bomb on me that he wouldn’t be able to help me with college at all. College was my only shot to get out of this life and into a better one. It was the light at the end of my tunnel. It was what had kept me from going insane. I PANICKED. I had turned down my mom’s help and now my dad was leaving me high and dry. He sat me down and we looked at what I had in the bank. We counted it all out and determined I had enough to cover one semester, not including food. SO MUCH ANXIETY.

I went over to see my friend’s aunt who had become somewhat of a mentor to me. With my life falling apart, I bawled to her about my broken heart and about my dad backing out of helping me with college. She calmly listened til I had finished, gathered together the tools for a eyelash extension starter kit, handed them to me, and proceeded to tell me I was done with guys til I got to college and that I needed to go home and teach myself how to do lash extensions so I could make money and move on. She told me to go watch youtube tutorials and practice on my step sisters. I could come over and shadow her any time. Once she approved of my work then she’d start referring clients to me. I was speechless. Instead of giving me food, this woman taught me how to feed myself. Doing eyelash extensions was what financially got me through the next few years.

Shortly after graduation I started hanging out with my coworkers who were servers. They were all a little older than me and I had a tiny crush on one guy in particular. It wasn’t anything huge and I wasn’t going to let it become anything since I was still reeling from my breakup. Four of us (including said guy) decided to go on a hike to a place called fossil springs. I almost drowned while we were there but that’s besides the point. I actually started liking the guy after this. Since my parents were super nosy they of course wanted him to come over to the house so they could meet the people I had started hanging out with. This was completely normal btw. They briefed EVERYONE I hung out with. This time, I didn’t feel like telling them I liked the guy. I just didn’t think they needed to know since I wasn’t even sure I was ready to even admit it to myself. I told them we were just friends. 

The guy and some of my other coworkers came over to hang out at my house. After they left, my dad looked at me with wide eyes and was like “YOU LIKE HIM!” I continued to deny it. He said it was obvious that I did and that he couldn’t believe I would lie to his face like that. I was super confused as to why this was such a big deal and then he GROUNDED ME for “lying” to him!!!! He took my phone, my laptop (which was a graduation present from my chinese grandpa aka not something for him to take) and then he told me to give him the keys to my car. To that, I told him if he took my keys I’d call the cops and report it stolen because it was MY car. Only MY name was on the title and he couldn’t do that. My stepmom was like “I cannot believe you would talk to your dad like that!” HAAHAHA I CANNOT BELIEVE HE IS GROUNDING ME FOR NOT TELLING HIM I HAD A CRUSH!!! He knew I was right so he said that he wouldn’t take my car but that I was only allowed to drive to work and back. I could not believe it. I was 18, graduated and GROUNDED. 

I don’t remember how long it lasted because he didn’t give it a time cap but I remember I didn’t feel an ounce of remorse for what I did and it really bothered my parents. I told my boss and coworkers what happened and they couldn’t believe it. They were like, “Your parents are actually insane.” My boss even told me I could use his phone or computer anytime I wanted. 

The brainwashing had completely worn off by this point and they were unnerved by my apathy. They called me into their bedroom one night and proceeded to bible bash me by whipping out scriptures and telling me that I “caused discord among brethren” (dad) and that I was “the problem in the family” (stepmom). Amazing. They also told me that the Devil had such great hold upon me and I was so far on his side that he wasn’t worried about or threatened by me at all anymore. I literally started laughing because they sounded so freaking insane. Their jaws just dropped in disbelief. They had officially lost me.

That was all just funny to me but the final straw came when I got home late from work one night. I was wearing a shirt to work that my stepmom had bought for her daughter a while ago. It was a sleeveless top - more so a tank top with really thick straps. We weren’t allowed to wear tank tops but I had seen my stepsister wear it without a shade shirt under it before and I figured since she could do no wrong, that meant it passed the test and maybe I could wear it too. I should have known better, though. My two other stepsisters were allowed to wear short shorts and tank tops but I wasn’t. I had to go by the fingertips rule. They didn’t. I DON’T KNOW WHY. I WOULD STILL LOVE TO KNOW WHY. The injustice of everything made me feel like I was going to explode at times. So, that’s what I mean when I say I should have known better than to think that I would be allowed to wear this tank top too but I just didn’t care if I got in trouble anymore. 

Back to the story, I walked in to say hi and goodnight after I got home late from work and my stepmom with all the passive aggressiveness in the world was like, “OoooOooh, Sammie. Cute shirt!” Like a snake. I knew exactly what she was trying to do. I just knew. She was trying to draw attention to the “immodesty” so my dad would get mad at me. Just another one of her tactics to get him to turn away from me. My dad noticed the shirt and started to say something. Just how she planned. I just shook my head, rolled my eyes, and went to my room. I could hear her as I walked away, “I don’t know! What did I do?” Fake. She came into the room my stepsister and I shared a few moments later trying to act innocent and asked what was wrong. I had had it. “You’re always just trying to get me in trouble with my dad! You knew exactly what you were doing! You weren’t trying to complement my shirt! I thought I could wear this because Kenzi wears it all the time like this and you never say anything to her!!! Why are you like this to me?!” She lost it on me. She flew into a rage, denied everything, and screamed that she “couldn’t wait for me to move out and leave!!!!” before she slammed the door behind her. Same, girl. Same. I just stood there and cried. Silent, exhausted tears. So tired and ready to be done and free. My stepsister came in and asked what had happened. I told her and she apologized. “I don’t know why she treats you like that, Sam.” My stepmom came back in for some reason while I was still standing there crying and my stepsister said something like, “We all know you treat her different.” I watched my stepmom’s eyes go wide and her tongue become tied over her own daughter calling her out. 

I could’ve moved out but I was only a couple months away from leaving so I figured I could stick it out just a little while longer and save money on rent. I had been grounded longer than a couple months before ;) 

About a month before I left I told my mom that my dad had backed out. She wasn’t surprised in the least and said she suspected that would happen. I told her I had enough to cover one semester but that I had started doing lashes to make money for food. She told me to keep my money and that she’d take care of it. I was again speechless. I don’t know how to describe the feeling I felt. I hadn’t felt safe or protected in so long and she had just decided to save me. She didn’t even have to. It helped her in no way. There was clearly no hidden agenda. This is how we slowly started to trust each other again. 

The day I left for school I picked up my stepdad from the airport, we packed up my car and started the drive to Idaho together. We planned to pick my mom up at a different airport along the way. As we pulled away from my house, relief washed over me. The light at the end of the tunnel was finally here. I had made it. I told myself I’d never go back and then fell asleep from exhaustion.

Next up, is BYU Idaho. I meet someone and the adventure only gets wilder.

xxx,

Sam