When I had my first child, I was 14 years old. I was homeless, hungry, and with a baby. God stepped in and gave me and my son a chance. We got adopted by a family that loved us.

When Michael was locked up in prison at that time, he was 18 years old. I was in love with him. I waited for him to come home from prison to be with us. It did not work out that way. He came home, and I left my adopted family to be with him.

He used me and abused me and put another baby in my tummy. He was always running around with women. Now I was 16 years old with two kids. In the process of all this, God was good to us. He sent people in my life to help me. I could not read or write. A good Samaritan filled out the application for me, and when we got our apartment, my children and I had to pack up our stuff.

I could not tell Michael that I was leaving him. He told me if he could not have me, no one could. When Michael realized my children and I weren’t home, he went crazy looking for us. I could not take all of our belongings, so I waited until he went to work to get our things.

But let me tell you what happened. I was scared to take the kids with me back to that house, so I left them downstairs with my best friend, and I went up. When I entered the apartment, Michael surprised me. He had not gone to work. He had stayed home, waiting for me to come back because he knew I did not take the kids’ and my belongings. So he grabbed me and slammed me against the wall. He told me if I ever left him, he would kill me. Then he took out a gun and put it to my head. I was so scared for my life. He said, “Bitch, I should kill you for leaving me, and where are my children?” God is good; Michael’s best friend was there. He came out of the living room and grabbed Michael and the gun and stopped him from pulling the trigger. After that, I got what I came for, and I ran down the stairs to my children, and I never went back to that apartment.

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Neesha Antoine was born in Trinidad and Tobago. At age eight, she moved with her family to New York City. She says she was the black sheep of the family and had a difficult and dysfunctional childhood. Now a single parent with four children and a grandson, she says, “I decided to go back to school to learn how to read and to get my high school diploma.” She studies with Nicolas Simon at the Brooklyn Public Library’s New Lots Adult Learning Center.