“No! Please don’t burn that!” I screamed while my father threw my grandmother’s handmade quilt into a flaming barrel behind our house.

they couldn’t help me. After that, Gerald made sure the rest of the family believed I was unstable and rebellious. He isolated me completely.

I watch numbly as my textbooks and clothes melt into the fire.

Then my blood turns cold.

He reaches into a garbage bag and pulls out a patchwork quilt.

“No! Please!” I scream, lunging forward. “Not that!”

It’s the continue reading …