My name is Tessa Hollis. I was sixteen when my father threw me out during the first major storm of October. We lived outside Duluth, Minnesota, where the rain was freezing and the roads were surrounded by dark woods. My mother had died when I was nine, and since then, my father Gerald had ruled our home with strict authority. My older sister Marissa, twenty, had always been his favorite. But lately she had become thinner, quieter, and strangely exhausted.

That evening, I was doing algebra homework when Marissa entered the living room holding an orange prescription bottle. She pointed at me and announced, “Dad, look what I found in her stuff.” I stared at it in disbelief. I had never seen those pills before. My father immediately turned toward me, his expression hardening. “You’re keeping drugs in my house?” I tried explaining, but he refused to listen.

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