[xoxtammixox]

The first time that I told someone, I was nine and my friend asked me why I came to school with red eyes so I told her that me and my mother and her boyfriend had been fighting. When I showed her my bruises and told her a few stories she told me that it was abuse. More recently, I told my best friend that my mother had been choking me one night and how she was beating me and he like got the most shocked expression and said, "Tavia, that's horrible abuse!"