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.

By Wednesday afternoon, the news of my mother's arrest had rippled through the entire extended family like a seismic wave.

My mother's sister, Aunt Karen—a woman who had spent fifteen years praising Jenna’s beauty while ignoring my existence—called my temporary phone seven times before I finally answered.

"Lauren!" Karen shouted the moment I picked up. "Have you lost your mind?! Your mother is sitting in a county cell because her brother hasn't finished posting the bond property paperwork! You are ruining this family!"

I sat on the balcony of my advocacy apartment, drinking a hot cup of tea, watching the city traffic below.

"Hello, Aunt Karen," I said.

"Don't 'Hello, Aunt Karen' me!" she yelled. "You need to go down to the prosecutor's office right now and tell them you made a mistake! Tell them the audio was a joke! Tell them you fell!"

"No," I said.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm not dropping the charges, Karen."

"She is your mother!" Karen screamed, her voice cracking with self-righteous fury. "She raised you! She gave you a home when you couldn't even finish your college degree!"

"She took four hundred dollars a month from me, stole my property, smashed a phone into my face, and covered up Jenna opening four thousand dollars of fraudulent credit in my name," I replied, keeping my tone completely even.

A short silence occurred on the line. Karen hadn't known about the credit card.

"Well... Jenna is young!" Karen stammered, trying desperately to find higher ground. "She made a mistake! Family handles these things internally, Lauren! You don't drag your own blood into a courtroom!"

"Family handles things internally when both sides respect each other," I said. "When one side treats the other like a servant to be beaten and robbed, family handles things through the District Attorney."

"You're a bitter, vengeful girl," Karen spat out. "Nobody in this family will ever speak to you again. You're completely cut off."

"Karen," I said softly.

"What?!"

"I cut you off three days ago," I said. "You're just realizing it now."

I hung up the phone and blocked her number, along with my uncle’s, my cousins', and every mutual family contact in my address book.

Ten minutes later, my phone chimed with a bank notification.

Deposit Received: Aegis Logistics Inc. Type: Signing Bonus Advance Amount: $2,500.00

I looked at the number on the screen.

Two thousand five hundred dollars of my own, earned money.

I opened a new tab on my laptop, searched for two-bedroom apartments near the Aegis headquarters, and scheduled three tours for Friday afternoon.