“My mom hit me last night,” I said thirty minutes into my therapy session.
It was the first thing about my life I had said all day to Misty. Truth was that I hadn’t wanted to be here yesterday, and I didn’t want to be here today, but after listening to Imani’s mother scream at her this morning and Imani telling me that she was so tired of it all, I had known that I had to come.
Not only did I have to come, but I had to talk.
I had to want to get better, so Imani had someone.
“She did?” Misty asked, eyes wide. After a couple moments of initial shock—it was her aunt too after all—she straightened out her shirt and looked back down at her notes. “How’d you feel when she did it?”
“Bad,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Really bad.”
“What else?”
My chest tightened, the words so
