"Chloe, I've given you too much slack! I worked my fingers to the bone to give birth to you and raise you! I fed you! I clothed you! And this is how you repay me? By pointing your finger in my face?"

"I taught you from the time you were little! Every successful woman makes it on her own merit and her own abilities, not on her hair!"

"So how come the second you get into college, all you can think about is messing with that hair? I don't think you're going to study at all. You're just going to chase boys! Trying to be a gold digger and take the easy way out, aren't you!"

My mom got more and more worked up, grabbing my acceptance letter and threatening to tear it to shreds right in front of me.

"If that's the case, why don't we just cancel the trip! Don't even bother going to college! You can stay right here at home! At least then I won't have to worry about you becoming some homewrecker and getting yourself killed!"

Years ago, my dad was my mom's best friend's boyfriend.

My mom saw that his family was well-off.

So she got pregnant on purpose to trap him.

Because of her own past.

In my mom's eyes.

Every woman in the world was a slut.

Including her own daughter.

It had always been like this, for as long as I could remember.

Anytime I did something she saw as a challenge to her authority.

She would find the one thing I cared about most and use it to crush me.

When I was six.

I refused to eat the scrambled eggs that made it hard for me to breathe.

So she tore up the math homework I had spent all night working on.

She even called my teacher and said I was lying about it on purpose.

It made my strict old teacher furious with disappointment.

For all six years of elementary school, I stood next to the teacher's desk during math class with my bald head on display.

In eighth grade.

I pushed her hand away for the first time when she came at me with the clippers.

So she cut up every single pad and tampon in the house.

Even when I cried and knelt and begged her to forgive me, she said it was to teach me a lesson.

She forced me to walk all the way to school in blood-soaked jeans.

In my senior year of high school.

I refused to use the secondhand textbooks she bought for me.

So she cut off my allowance during the most important year of my life.

If it wasn't for the free soup in the cafeteria and the kindness of my teachers and friends.

I probably would have starved to death that winter before my eighteenth birthday.

And now, here we were again.

She knew that this college, this major.

Was the biggest dream of my life.

The day I got my acceptance letter, I was too excited to sleep.

For the chance to go to my dream school.

I had no choice but to give in again, kneeling on both knees to apologize and beg my mom for mercy.