Скачать или смотреть Father's Belt Left Scars—They Called It 'Discipline.' CPS Had Different Words

The leather cracked against my spine with the sound of thunder, each strike sending white-hot lightning through my nervous system. I pressed my face deeper into the pillow, tasting salt and cotton as my teeth bit down to muffle the screams that wanted to tear from my throat. The buckle caught my shoulder blade on the upswing, and I felt the warm trickle of blood seeping through my torn shirt.

Above me, my father's breathing was heavy and rhythmic, like he was chopping wood or running a marathon. This wasn't anger anymore. This was something else entirely.

"Count them," he panted, raising the belt again. "We're at fifteen. You've got ten more coming for lying to your teacher about doing your homework."
I hadn't lied. I'd told Mrs. Rodriguez the truth about why my essay was late. I'd been up until three in the morning taking care of my baby brother Marcus when he wouldn't stop crying, while Mom worked her night shift at the diner and Dad was passed out drunk on the couch. But the truth had never mattered in our house. Only his version of it did.

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My name is Sierra, and I'm twenty-four now, working as a medical billing clerk in Phoenix. But this story takes us back to when I was sixteen, living in a cramped two-bedroom apartment in Riverside, California, where the walls were thin enough to hear every neighbor's argument and thick enough to muffle every scream. This is the story of how a school project about justice became the weapon that finally brought real justice to our home.