“My mother was pregnant with her seventh child… and when I refused to continue raising her children, she called the police to have me arrested as if I were a criminal.”

I took a deep breath and repeated that I was not going back to that house under any circumstances. Her mask of the worried mother shattered instantly to reveal a raw and dangerous fury that made the officers shift their weight.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a folded piece of paper, holding it up like a weapon for the police to see. “She is going back because if she wants to tell lies about me, I can show everyone what I found hidden in her private notebooks,” she hissed.

I recognized my own handwriting on that page and felt my world collapse because it was the secret I had written while crying one lonely night. I had written a truth that I thought I would only ever share with the paper, a truth that could tear our family apart forever.

My mother held the page with two fingers as if it were a poisonous blade, and the male officer asked her what the document contained. She immediately shifted back into her victim voice and claimed I was a rebellious and confused teenager who wrote horrible fantasies.