Author: carmenrichter

If what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, Kyler Strong should be Wonder Woman by now.Three weeks before her sixteenth birthday, Kyler was the victim of sexual assault by three varsity football players at her high school. She was intimidated into silence and slut-shamed at school afterwards, ensuring that anyone she told wouldn’t believe her. She resolved to keep her head down and suffer her … head down and suffer her way through high school, knowing that after she graduated, she would be free of her attackers, who continued to torment her daily.Kyler’s plan worked great for two years. But…

At sixteen years old, I lost my first love, and it shook me to my core. My parents thought taking me out of town for the summer would help me to move on, but I returned home the same way I left: a broken girl who was the last person to see her boyfriend alive.The night before school started back up, I went to an open mic night and poured my heart and soul into a song I wrote for the boy who never … for the boy who never made it home.That night, I met Elijah, and we had…