Probably as messed up as the fact that nobody noticed, or maybe nobody bothered to care. See, my mom had mastered the art of faking it. Faking everything. She lived two lives; the hardworking, single, loving mother who’d brag to anyone who listened about how proud she was of me. And when the people she spoke to told her that she should be—that I was a sweet child or any other form of compliment—she smiled and agreed to their faces. It wasn’t until we got home that I’d see her—who she really was: jealous, bitter, hateful and violent. I’d say she was a drunk—but she wasn’t. She controlled her drinking to only the times when I set her off. I just set her off a lot… by breathing.

She hated me so much.

Almost as much as she hated my dad.

A man I’ve never even met.

She rambled sometimes—would tell me that I ruined her life. That she’d been raped and that’s how I came to be. But she lied, because sometimes when she got really drunk—when her knee was pressed against my chest and her hands were around my neck while I lay on the floor, gasping for breath, she cried. She’d tell me that she should’ve been enough for him. That he should’ve stayed for her. That she loved him and why the fuck didn’t he love her back—whoever the hell he was.

She apologized after each “episode,” as she liked to call them. She was always sorry. She’d say she didn’t mean it. That she just got angry and it set her off, but she loved me. She loved me so much. I meant everything to her and she couldn’t lose me.

She was my mom.

The only thing I had in my life.

So of course I believed her.

Of course I loved her.

She was the reason I was born into this shitty life, right? Without her, I’d be nothing.

And she reminded me of it. Over and over again, she’d tell me this.

Her greatest apology came when I was fourteen, right before high school started. She stroked my hair, wiping tears from my cheeks with one hand, the other covering my mouth to block my screams. She kissed my temple and told me it was okay, that everything would be fine, all while one of her “boys” took my virginity. It wasn’t him who took my innocence, though. It was her. And when it was all over I lay in my bed, naked from the waist down, blood between my legs, and stared up at the ceiling—my tears mixed with my vomit soaked into my pillowcase. “Best two hundred bucks I’ve ever spent,” said her boy. “I’ll leave the money on the counter.”

My mother nodded and stayed in the room until he was gone, then she stood over me—her smile sad, genuine almost. “It’s better this way,” she said. “You start high school soon and the boys will want to take it from you. They’ll break your heart, Becca. Just like your father did with me. We don’t want that, do we? This way, it’s done. And you’ll have no regrets.”

“I hate you,” I whispered, because I needed her to know it. I immediately closed my eyes, knowing what would come next.

I attended my first day of high school with a black eye and a broken wrist. Surfing accident, apparently—so my mother said.

Up until high school, I spent my days staring at the walls of my room, dreaming of a better life, smiling and dodging questions from the CPS officers who came in to check on me. I never found out who called them. I suspected it was the old lady next door. She’d be the only one who could hear my cries. But the officers would come, they’d ask if I was okay, and I’d smile and nod and they’d leave. Because, really? Who would suspect a mother of beating their daughter? Especially a mother like mine: a hardworking, single, loving mother whose only concern was my clumsiness. Like I said, she was so fucking good at faking it.

But high school changed everything.

Ms. Crawford, who I later came to know as Olivia, was the guidance counselor. She called me into her office two weeks in. I sat opposite her, my gaze lowered and my heart pounding against my chest. “Rebecca?”

“Becca,” I whispered.

“Becca,” she repeated. And after a long pause she said, “Look at me.”

So I did. I looked at her—right into her eyes.

“I see you, Becca.”

I didn’t know what she meant—not at the time. But over the next few months, I began to understand. She saw me. And when she loaned me her camera on the first field trip of the year, I began to see everything—not through my tainted eyes, but through a lens. And I fell in love for the very first time in my life.

I fell in love with photography.

I fell in love with art.

And I fell in love with a boy who loved both those things.

His name was Charlie and he was three years older. He liked to touch me, and I liked his touch—for the first time ever, I didn’t shy away from someone else’s hands on me. His touch didn’t hurt. It was safe. And in his arms, I was safe.

And just like I hid my camera from my mom, I also hid him.

I kept him a secret.

Something I shouldn’t do to my mother—keep secrets. Because when she found out I loved him more than I loved her—that I’d spent evenings after school not doing all the school activities I’d said I’d been doing but rather, seeing him—it ended… in a night with me in the hospital unable to breathe because she’d punched me so hard it punctured my lung. Another visit from CPS. Another smile and nod followed by another lie. My mother told them it was a cheerleading accident. I didn’t even do cheerleading. Something the CPS officers could have found out if they’d cared enough to check.