As the move‑in date approached, Daddy, Odette, and I toured LSU’s campus. I originally planned to live in a dorm, the typical freshman experience. But the moment Daddy stepped inside one, he turned right back around.
“Hell no,” he said, loud enough for the RA to hear. “My babygirl ain’t stayin’ in no shoebox.”
Odette agreed, muttering, “Ain’t no child of mine livin’ stacked up like laundry.”
So, we looked for apartments and found a decent one‑bedroom not far from campus. Daddy paid the deposit and the first three months of rent before I could blink. I tried to tell him we could take our time, but he was determined to have everything ready.
We never struggled with money, but I didn’t know Daddy had been saving for me for years. Quietly. Consistently. Without bragging or complaining. When he and Mama divorced, she didn’t want any of his money; they’d always kept separate accounts. The only thing she wanted was to make things difficult.
Looking back, it’s almost funny. The judge saw right through her claims; the lies, the exaggerations, the accusations. Daddy had never mistreated her. Never raised a hand. Never cursed her out. The judge threw out most of her nonsense and granted the divorce quickly, almost like he wanted Daddy free as fast as possible.
I think he felt sorry for Daddy. I know I did.
But Daddy didn’t waste time dwelling on the past. He spent that money on me; furniture, dishes, bedding, a camera, notebooks, everything I’d need to start my life.
And I was grateful. Deeply.
As the days passed and my apartment filled with the things Daddy insisted I needed, I felt something shift inside me. A deep sense of fulfillment. A peace I hadn’t known since childhood.
As the summer stretched long and warm across St. Martin Parish, and the day I’d move into my own apartment crept closer, I found myself doing something I never imagined I’d do; writing letters to myself. Not diary entries. Not journal scribbles. Letters. Tender, deliberate, healing letters meant to rewrite the story Mama and those church women carved into me.
I wrote them slowly, like I was stitching up wounds with new thread. I wrote them carefully, like each word was a salve. I wrote them honestly, like I was finally telling the truth to the girl I used to be.
In those letters, I took every ugly name they gave me such as wicked, evil, demonic child, heathen, devil’s daughter
and I replaced them with the words Daddy, Odette, Nylah, and my friends used when they talked about me.
Blessed. Smart. Talented. Kind. Strong. Loved. Chosen. Whole.
I wrote those words over and over until they felt like mine. Until they felt like truth. Until they felt like home.
And somewhere between the ink and the paper, I realized something that made my chest tighten and loosen all at once:
Mama needed a villain in her story.
She needed someone to blame for her choices, her failures, her fears. She needed a shadow to point at, so she didn’t have to face her own reflection. She needed a scapegoat to justify her righteousness. She needed a monster to make her suffering make sense.
And I had been that villain.
It was easier for her to call me cursed than to admit she was drowning. Easier to condemn me than confront the truth she ran from. Easier to paint me as wicked than acknowledge her own brokenness.
I used to ache under that weight. I used to carry it like a stone in my chest. I used to believe her words were prophecy.
But now? Now I was fine with being her villain.
I spent my days writing letters to myself, taking pictures of the bayou, laughing with Daddy, listening to Odette’s stories, and packing for my new life.
I wrote letters to the girl I used to be. The nine‑year‑old who cried in the hallway while Mama called her wicked, the fifteen‑year‑old who fought a grown man to protect her mother, the child who begged for love she never received.
I told her she survived. I told her she mattered. I told her she was never the problem. I told her she was worthy of every good thing coming her way.
I wrote letters to the woman I was becoming. The one who would walk LSU’s campus with her camera, the one who would write stories that mattered, the one who would build a life without fear, the one who would choose love carefully and never settle for less.
I wrote letters to the future; to the version of me who would someday look back and say, “I made it out. I made it through. I made myself whole.”
And as the days went by, the shame I used to carry, the shame of not being loved by my own mother, began to wash away. Not all at once. Not magically. But slowly, like dirt rinsed off in the rain.
I felt renewed. Excited. Hopeful.
I was ready for LSU. Ready for adulthood. Ready for whatever came next.
And for the first time, I wasn’t afraid of the future.
I was walking into it with my head high, my heart steady, and my letters tucked safely in a box as reminders of who I was, who I am, and who I’m becoming.
