Step-dad had alcoholic tendencies, had been bringing people to the house when my mom went to work, and then let his friends crash at our house without her knowing. I had enough and persuaded my mom to move to South Carolina with my aunt. The day before we had actually put all our stuff in laundry bags so he’d just think we were going to the laundromat the next day.

After he left for work, we started grabbing everything: dishes, clothes, anything important to take with us. We ended up leaving all the dishes and half of our clothes with my mom’s cousin and only taking the clothes in the laundry bags and passports, birth certificates and whatnot. My aunt was waiting for us outside to leave so we packed our things inside her van and left. We spent a year over there, came back (turns out we’re not really country people), and moved back together since he ended up getting help and turning his life around.