Choices. Some are as simple and mindless as taking a breath. Others are thrust upon you like a title wave, crashing down without warning and dragging you backward in their wake leaving you thrashing and struggling for the feeblest gasp of air. I know what you must be thinking; how would I know, right? I'm just a seventeen year-old kid, beginning my senior year in high school. What do I know about real choices, real struggle, real life? Well, it hasn't always been a cake walk for me. I've faced real choices. Real decisions. Real consequences. My parents divorced before I was a year old, after they had me in high school. My mother won primary custody and my father joined the military. She remarried when I was about 4. My stepfather was an okay enough guy and I still saw my dad on weekends. By 8, I probably had lived in ten different places. I wouldn't exactly call them homes, except for when my mom eventually moved into my grandmother's house. My clothes were tattered and used, my head was shaved, and I wouldn't really call my meals balanced. I never had many friends and we couldn't afford for me to play sports. My mom loved me, and she did the best she could, but it was difficult to lay down roots when we couldn't ever settle down anywhere. Eventually my mom and stepdad began fighting more frequently and I noticed it was getting more physical. One night, when I was 8, it got serious. My stepfather had been drinking and lost his temper. He came in and hit my mother with me in the room and she was screaming, telling me to run. We were living in a trailer at the time, and the next thing I knew, she was running outside after me. She had her phone with her and she was calling 911. I listened as she told the operator that she was afraid that her husband was going to kill her and that her face was bloody and swollen. I looked up to hold her hand and see her put her finger to her bloody lips, telling me to be quiet. The police arrived to arrest my stepfather, an ambulance also came to take my mother to the hospital. I was terrified. My grandparents showed up to get me and all I remember is my mother telling me not to talk to anybody about this, not to tell anyone what happened. I didn't understand why she would tell me that, but at that moment, I made a choice. I chose to listen to her. I didn't talk to the police nor to my grandparents. The next day, my mother came home, and my stepdad was with her. They acted like nothing had happened. My mother pulled me aside that evening and told me that it was an accident and it would never happen again but still don't tell anyone. She said that if I did, that they would take me away and I wouldn't see her anymore. Again, I made a choice. I chose to believe my mom and didn't tell anybody. The coming weeks were excruciating. I could not focus at school. I couldn't sleep at night. When I saw my father during his weekends, I could barely speak to him knowing I was keeping this huge secret from him. It was eating me alive. Almost two months later, a woman from Child Protective Services came to visit me at school. She pulled me out of class and wanted to ask me some questions. She told me that I could trust her, but I knew that was a lie. I knew that this was the woman my mother had warned me about. This was the woman that had come to take me away from her. So, I made a choice. I did what my mother told me to do, and I lied. Little did I know that same woman would leave our meeting and get in touch with my father, for the very first time making him aware of what happened two months prior. My father obtained legal counsel the very next day, and was in court with my mother and a judge granted my father full physical custody. It took my father and stepmother less than a week after discovering what happened to help me; to get me out of there, to move me to a real home, where I had my own bedroom, clean clothes, a proper education and a loving family. It has almost been 9 years since that day. I have spent these years growing as a person. Healing from the wounds that were left from those memories; seeking counseling from church, family and friends. I have learned to channel any remaining negative energy into sports. I have found peace volunteering my time at the children's program at the local library. I also want to be an advocate for domestic violence. That is a passion of mine, and I will be involved in that for women and families for the rest of my life. Choices. It has been almost 9 years since that day. Nine years that I could have sat around feeling sorry for myself, for my story. But I'm not. Because these are nine years that I have chosen to wake up, to work, to live, to thrive, and to be a voice for others. Because I have choices, I choose to never be silenced again.