Based on a true story. For privacy reasons, some names, places, and events have been changed. Some events are fictional for dramatization purposes only.
Trigger: This book includes drug, mental, physical, and sexual abuse.
Growing up in a strict environment, Kate has always followed the rules. So, when asked to the eighth-grade dance by one of the boys in her class; she is excited when she is permitted to go. She never dreamed that going to a dance and hanging out with her friends could be so much fun. As the night ends, she can't wait to get home to tell her stepmother all about it. When her father picks her up from the dance and detours down a deserted road she has never been on before, Kate becomes frightened, and the horrific event that takes place will change her life forever. At the tender age of twelve, Kate will experience some of the most horrendous abuse one can ever imagine.
For over two years, Kate has suffered every abuse imaginable at the hands of her father. Finally, the opportunity that she had long awaited arrives when she finally gets the chance to expose her father for the monster that he is. After going through a stressful trial and dealing with the threats from her father's family, she thinks she is finally safe, only to be devasted once again when her stepmother turns on her and starts blaming her for all that has happened and starts to physically and mentally abuse Kate for sending her husband away.
Kate's only escape is to leave her small town and go to live with her birth mother, a mother she never knew. Grateful for the opportunity to start a new life somewhere else, where no one knows her, she is devasted as she is thrown into her mother's world of drugs. As she leaves one abusive family for another, she can't help but wonder how she will survive this new life of hers.