Introduction

The year was 2001, and I was starting my junior year in high school. I drove through the open gates of the student parking lot, breathing in the cooler air that made those early fall mornings feel like relief, especially after the close of another sweltering summer. I was driving my mother’s car, which I claimed to be mine, for no other reason except that most everyone else my age had their own car, and I wanted to be in their category. 

I had spent a good potion of the summer nursing my first real heartbreak, and after taking the a few months to get over it, I was ready to forget all that nonsense and focus on something else; something that wouldn’t be such a roller coaster; something that I chose; and something that couldn’t be taken away from me. The thought of starting fresh ignited a new sense of motivation, urging me to find the avenue that was calling my name.

My sense of optimism was short-lived, however. Just as it was taking root and beginning to bloom, the big thing happened. The thing that changed my whole world, shattering my grand ideas into dust before tossing them into the wind. We would all be forced to change in one way or another, and the events proved to be so disruptive that, from that moment on, all of my future endeavors became riddled with chaos and trauma and fear, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself otherwise. I tried to tell myself that if I could just carry on as I always had, those around me would never suspect the horrors my family was facing.