Part 2: When she refused to sell her job-application phone to fund her sister's luxury Chicago trip, her mother smashed it directly into her face.

I walked three miles to the public library in the center of town.

My lip was visibly swollen, a small purple bruise blooming near the corner of my mouth. People at the bus stop stared, but I kept my head high, my eyes fixed on the brick building ahead.

I sat down at a public computer terminal, plugged in my USB drive, and pulled up my bank accounts.

If you want to dismantle a bully, you don't scream at them. You don't make a scene on their front lawn. You look at their balance sheet.

For eight months, my mother had been telling anyone who would listen—her sisters, her neighbors, her church group—that she was "selflessly supporting" her unemployed daughter.

She claimed I lived there for free. She claimed I was a drain on her pension.

I opened my bank portal and printed out eight months of electronic transfer receipts.

Every single month, on the first: $400.00 to Diane Thompson - Memo: Rent/Utilities. Every single week: $75.00 to Giant Eagle Supermarket - Memo: Food.

I didn't live there for free. I was paying her nearly five hundred dollars a month to live in a ten-by-ten bedroom while she used my money to help fund Jenna’s credit card payments.

Then I pulled up my credit report.

My pulse spiked.

Listed under "Open Revolving Credit Accounts" was a card I had never applied for:

Chase Freedom Unlimited - Opened: June 14 Current Balance: $4,280.00 Status: 30 Days Past Due Primary Cardholder: Lauren Thompson Secondary Authorized User: Jenna Thompson

I stared at the screen, the blood draining from my face.

Four thousand two hundred dollars.

Jenna had taken my Social Security number—which was stored in an unsealed tax folder in my mother’s home office—opened a credit card in my name, added herself as an authorized user, maxed it out on clothes and travel, and then let it sit in delinquency.

That was why my job applications were getting rejected.

Three of the corporate positions I had interviewed for required a preliminary background and financial credit screening. The delinquent credit line opened in my name had flagged my profile as a financial risk, automatically tossing my résumé into the rejection pile before a human manager ever saw it.

It wasn't my qualifications. It wasn't that "no one wanted me."

My sister had committed identity theft, destroyed my credit, and used it as an excuse to mock my unemployment.

I sat in the quiet, carpeted room of the library, the low hum of the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, and felt something inside me lock into place.

I wasn't sad anymore. I wasn't hurt.

I opened a blank Word document and typed two headings at the top of the page:

CRIMINAL COMPLAINT: DOMESTIC BATTERY & DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY