CHAPTER 1 — CHILDHOOD SHADOWS

There are certain memories the body tries to forget long before the mind understands what happened. They lie still for years—sometimes decades—tucked into corners where language has no access, waiting for a moment when the truth can surface without destroying you. Childhood has a way of holding both wonder and wounds side by side, never announcing which is which until much later.

When I look back now, I can see the shadows before I knew their names. But at ten years old, the world is still mostly made of instinct, innocence, and trust. I didn’t have the vocabulary for danger. I didn’t have the framework for betrayal. I only had a child’s belief that adults were protectors, not predators.

That belief did not survive the year I was ten.

The Drive

It was a Friday afternoon, the kind that carries excitement on its edges. The sky held a polished blue hue, a gentle breeze threaded through warm sunlight, and everything felt paused in a quiet kind of yes. I was in fifth grade—old enough to crave independence but young enough to still need permission for everything. The weekend was here, and the plan was simple: spend the night at my best friend’s apartment down the road. We rode our bikes around the neighborhood and got into the kind of mischief that flirted with sneaky but never crossed into real trouble. Sometimes her two younger siblings would play with us too. Her family felt familiar. Safe. Normal.

Her father came to pick me up. He drove a beat-up family sedan with no bells and whistles. I’m from the south and all folks here know about what we call a “southern goodbye”. It’s like a simple goodbye, but, stretched out and lasts at least 10 minutes. As expected, my mom stood in the driveway with us, chatting with him like two old friends. The small talk felt like long talk. While they stood side by side laughing and talking, I remember impatience bubbling under my skin, that childlike eagerness to go—to get to my friend, to start the fun part of the weekend.

As a kid, I was taught never to interrupt talking adults, it was considered rude and disrespectful. As my patience grew thin and my driveway skipping became an outlet for my excitedness, I forgot all my manners and belted out anyway. “Come On! Let’s Go!”

In that setting, nothing about the moment suggested danger. Nothing told me that my life was about to divide cleanly into before and after because the proverbial costume that looks like “stranger danger” wasn’t being worn.

When their conversation finally ended, I buckled myself into the front passenger seat because that’s what good kids do. As we drove toward the apartment complex, he mentioned stopping by the dance studio first to check whether my friend’s jazz class was finished.

It wasn’t.

I remember standing inside the studio building, pressing my face to the small observation window, watching her through the glass. She looked so graceful, so confident. Dance classes were something other families did—families with schedules and routines and structure. My own childhood didn’t include lessons or leagues. We weren’t that kind of household. So, I watched her with a mix of admiration and distance, unaware that this would be the last moment that still felt innocent.

We left the small neighborhood dance studio and got back in the well-worn family sedan.

But we didn’t go home.