I dedicate this book, just like the first one, to Richard and LaDainian McNeal.

Never stop reaching for your goals. Whether it’s getting a better job, going back to school, or opening a new business. Never stop reaching for your goals. You may bump your head a few times. You may fall too. But you got to keep on getting back up and try again. I am sure glad I got up a few times when I fell. Now I’m doing what I love—writing. Never give up.

This book is a part 2 to my first book. And part 2 is even bumpier than part 1 was. I wanted to write a part 2 because I still had a lot more issues to get out. So I decided to write a part 2. Get ready, readers, for another bumpy ride. Thanks again for taking the time to read my book, The Other Truth You Didn’t Know.

Where do I start? Like I said in part 1 of The Truth You Didn’t Know, my mom and dad had issues. So like I said in the first book, we would run from my dad to Augusta GA until one day my mom had reached her limit. We left for good. I didn’t really understand what was going on until I got older. So when we left New York for good, my mom still had some issues. I would worry about her all the time and my brothers. When I was nine years old, my mom had my baby brother. He was born with some issues. He would get sick all the time. He would have to be hospitalized often. Anyway one time he had got real, real, real dehydrated. The doctor said he needed lots and lots of fluid. After the doctor saw him, we went to the store to get him some drinks. I stayed up all night off and on. I would make sure he had juice in him all night. He could have died then.

It could have been the end for him that day. Instead of when he was in ICU that one year. (Read more in part 1) The next day I was so sleepy in school. The only reason I went was because I didn’t want to be home all day. I went to school tired as hell. I knew when he woke up, he probably was peeing every five minutes. That’s how much juice and whatever else we brought I made him drink. That’s why to this day when I see wood panel in houses, it just do something to me. Because my little brother could have died that night. I had to keep him drinking through the night. The apartment we stayed in had wood panel walls all throughout the apartment. It made the apartment dark. Real dark. I hated it. I hated that apartment, and I hated the school we had to go to. My grades were really bad. I thought about my brother all day in school. We ended up moving out those apartments, and in with my grandma again until my mom got herself on her feet. She did, and that’s when we moved in the projects. I don’t know how old I was at that time, maybe twelve and a half years old. While we were staying in the apartment with the wood panel, that’s where I started getting my cycle. I started getting my cycle when I was twelve years old, and that was at the apartment with the wood panel.

When we moved to the projects I probably was fourteen years old. Me and my oldest brother would take her money and split it and give the rest to my grandma. At my high school, some teachers would have candy, chips, and cookies they would sell. Most of the money I had from the split would go on that. I felt like if she was going to do what she wanted to do with the money, I was too. I would tell my grandma I got this money from momma. Me and my oldest brother had already got our cut. This one time my mom had gone out with some friends. These two guys were in the house. They stayed in the neighborhood, so they knew she had kids. I had my room door open. I had already called my grandma to come get us. She said, well, go to bed like you normally would. Me and my oldest brother were downstairs when we called her. So we both go in our rooms to act like we were asleep until my grandma got there. My grandma said, go to bed so she would not think something is up. While I was in bed, my room door was open. I always kept it open so I could hear my brothers at night. I had my eyes closed. And something said, open your eyes. I opened my eyes, and this man was standing in my doorway. I lifted my head up. He came in my room. He’s standing over my bed. He took the cover off me and just looked at me like I was a piece of meat. Then he started touching my arm. That was when I screamed. As I screamed, he ran out the room. And my grandma and aunt were running up the stairs. My aunt hugged me so tight. She asked me, did he do anything to you? And I said, no, he just touched my arm and took the cover off me. I was about fifteen years old. For a long time I couldn’t even remember how my grandma and aunt got there. I had blacked out. I couldn’t remember that part for a long time. I remember asking my brother, how did Grandma get here so fast? And he said, you don’t remember? We called her. Then it came back to me. My aunt was crying, and I was crying. I couldn’t remember for a long time how they got there so fast. I didn’t ask my brother that question until years later. That’s not something you just sit around and talk about. He said, you don’t remember we called her? And I said, oh, that’s right. I had blacked out. That’s when that part of my brain turned on. When my brother asked me you don’t remember we called her. I said, yeah, I remember now. I didn’t remember until then. After that day I said the next person who’d come in my room was getting cut. I started sleeping with a knife under my pillow. I told my brother, you got to do the same. We weren’t staying there much longer after that. My grandma got tired of coming to rescue us in the middle of the night every other night, so she moved all of us in her place.

I would sleep with a bra, t-shirt, and shorts on. I never knew when I had to run to the phone booth to call my grandma to come and get us. I slept like that for years. We could never keep a phone (house phone). She was hospitalized twice. By the time she woke up, we were halfway grown. We stayed with my grandma for a while until my mom got on her feet after that night that guy came in my room. I did not want to go back to the apartment. I really didn’t. Once my mom got on her feet, we did go back to the apartment. My grandma would take us to school some days when we stayed with her. She would turn the music down in her car, and she would tell us, okay, let me hear it. We already knew what she meant. We had to tell her the books of the bible. Just like counting or saying your ABCs. We had to know the books of the Bible. That was cool, and we didn’t mind that. But we didn’t call my grandma to come get us when we were doing wrong. Like the guy who stayed behind me that told the whole neighborhood we had sex. That was his aunt he stayed with. His aunt and my momma were friends. Sometimes I would sneak over to his apartment. Most of the time my mom would be over there too. So we couldn’t tell on her when we were wrong (read more in first book). I had told my grandma one time she had to come get us in the middle of the night. I said, I don’t want to stay with momma no more. And she said, I understand, but your momma needs you right now. She will get better soon. I said, well, she better hurry up. I was ready to run away then.

I was maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. We got sick of going back and forth to my grandma’s house. And my grandma got sick of coming to get us in the middle of the night every other night. So she had gotten to the point where she was like, y’all is going to have to move in with me for a while. So that’s what we did. My mom was hospitalized twice. The second time she checked herself in the clinic. I had come home from school, and my oldest brother was home. I asked him, where Momma at? And he said, oh, she checked herself in the hospital. I was so happy. I said, yes, maybe this time will help her. She started looking good, gaining weight. We would go and visit her, and my baby brother really missed her. I did too, but I was glad she was getting help. We gave her a party when she got out. My little brother was so happy to see her. He ran to the car. I called her issues or struggles she was dealing with to put her in the hospital sleep. She was sleep all those years. We wanted to hang out with our friends and have fun not with people just from the hall. When she woke up (when she got better). We wanted to do what we wanted to do. I know that’s how I felt. I kept the house clean, and my brothers in one piece and safe. I got picked on so much in school about my hair, my clothes, my shoes, my teeth, everything. That’s why I never told anybody I was a Jehovah’s Witness.

When I was in high school, one of my teachers asked me, why your parents never got your teeth fixed? And I was like we could never afford it. That question made me feel uncomfortable because I already felt bad about my teeth. That was none of her business. I went home from school and asked my momma, why didn’t we get my braces when we went to that last dentist? And she said, because I couldn’t afford the deposit. Your insurance don’t pay for it. Why are you asking? I said, I was just wondering. We had gone a couple of times to talk to the dentist about getting me braces. But we just couldn’t afford it, and my dad wasn’t helping. All he was sending was fifty-four dollars a month in child support for two kids, so that wasn’t going to help. I remember I started asking questions about sex at nine years old. And my momma told me the plain truth when I would ask. I thank her for that because when I started my cycle at twelve, I was at home. There was no school this day, and I already knew what was up. I called my momma in the bathroom. And she was like, okay, we got to go to the store. By twelve years old, I really thought I was grown then. When my breast started growing, you couldn’t tell me anything. I could have done without the pain though. That pain when your breast is growing. My momma had told everybody, my daughter is a woman now. I was like, Aw, man! She told everybody. But I don’t drink, because I would rather not get something started. I drink every blue moon, which is hardly never. I guess I’d rather not even get it started. I had enough problems with taking goody powders. I thought when I moved up here the second time I would be homesick. But I wasn’t. As the Greyhound bus was pulling off, I took a deep breath. And I said, okay, I’m on my way to my new life. When I left home, then I might have had fifty dollars in my pocket that my mom let me have. Fifty dollars and no job, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to be out of Augusta, Georgia, and on my own. I was just glad to be gone.

We would go to Chuck E. Chesse every weekend. And when we would go to the movies, we would pay for one and watch them all. My aunt would drop us off and pick us up later. We would sneak and watch all the movies. We had some rough times, but we had some good times too. We listened to music my grandma didn’t like us listening to. Some of the music we liked to listen to she would say, y’all got to turn that off. I understand what she wanted, and my mom too. The best for us and wanted us to stay away from what was wrong. I just wanted to hang out with my friends from school, and do what they did. Like I said in my first book I had no friends in the hall. None but one and family. I got my hair cut for the first time when I was in high school. My momma let me get my hair cut, and I felt so pretty. The lady who did my hair did a great job. I was so happy. Me and the guy that I dated in high school who kissed me in the lunchroom had broken up. I told my mom I wanted my hair cut, and she asked me if I was sure. I said yeah! It wasn’t super long, but it was a nice length. I wanted my hair cut because me and him had broken up, and he didn’t want me to cut my hair. That was the only time we broke up. We broke up because this other guy who didn’t pay me any attention in school was holding my hand. Doing it on purpose. One of my teachers came to school and had to leave early, so we had to go in another class. So the guy that didn’t pay me any attention this was his class. I was sitting in there, and he walked in. I was saying to myself, oh lord. My boyfriend also had a friend who was in this class. The other guy kept holding my hand. And I kept taking my hand back, and he kept grabbing it. My boyfriend’s other friend went and got my boyfriend out of his class. He told him that I was letting him hold my hand, the guy who would not pay me any attention. My boyfriend came to my class. Well, it wasn’t my class. My teacher was gone. I went out in the hallway, and he was standing there mad. He barely let me explain what was going on. I was trying to explain it to him, and he just walked off. Then the other guy who didn’t pay me any attention left. He left the class after doing what he did. It was like it was his whole mission. It was like he had that planned. So we broke up, and it was a month before school was out. We ended up getting back together before school was out. He told me he was sorry that he didn’t listen to my side of the story. And he ended up liking my hair.

I remember one time, me and my oldest brother was sitting on the floor in the living room. My dad was in the kitchen doing the dishes. He could see us from the kitchen. We just started shooting birds at him. I am talking about hard too. Licking our tongue at him and everything. At first, he couldn’t see what we were doing. He was like, let me see that again? We showed him again. Next thing you know, he had got the belt. He had to walk pass my momma. He told her what we did or was doing cause he had the belt in his hand. She said, no, don’t beat them. They don’t even know what that mean or what they doing. She said, let me explain to them what that mean. When my mom explained it to us, I felt so bad. I started tearing up. My dad already had tears in his eyes. He did a lot for us. I just felt bad. Like my mom said, we didn’t know. I bet we didn’t do that anymore. For real, she still made us apologize. That really hurt my dad’s feelings. My mom said, they probably got that from school. Like one time, me and my mom was sitting on the bed, watching T.V. This man on T.V. was like, old bastard. Telling somebody that in the movie. Then I said the same thing. And laughed! Like I really knew what he was talking about. My momma was like, that is a bad word. Don’t say everything you hear on T.V. We were