Intro
Viviana book with a poor Mexican girl growing up in early 1990s Long Beach, California. A bright and creative child, she finds solace in books, riot grrrl zines, and cable TV channels like MTV and VH1. Despite her passion for learning and pop culture, she becomes a target of relentless bullying at school for being a "geek." The bullying continues into high school, escalating until she's expelled and placed in two abusive group homes where she endures hunger, violence, and emotional trauma. Eventually, she escapes and returns to live with her grandmother. Determined to rebuild her life, she enrolls at Long Beach City College, where her talent earns her a journalism scholarship. Though still struggling with poverty, she finds joy in music and friendship, attending rock concerts in Hollywood. Now 39, she reflects on her past and dedicates herself to educating young people about the lasting harm caused by bullying in the '90s

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Chapter 1– A Girl With No Voice, But a Universe of Words

In a world that never seemed to hear me, I found salvation in the pages of a green 1968 Webster’s New World Dictionary—its cracked spine and yellowing pages my first true companions. That book wasn’t just ink and paper. It was magic. I would trace the intricate illustrations with trembling fingers, as if I could step inside them and vanish from the noise of reality. I sketched them obsessively, trying to replicate every shadow, every curve. Maybe if I drew enough, I could escape.

Before computers filled every desk, I had a battered old typewriter that clattered and sang with every word I punched into it. It was my machine of dreams. I created entire fairy tale worlds—worlds where no one mocked me, where I wasn’t broken or strange. Just whole, and free.

Then came the myths. Greek mythology. Titans. Gods. Tragedies. Warriors. My eyes widened as my Aunt Liza, the only one who ever looked at me like I was normal, handed me my very first myth book from Borders Bookstore—now a ghost of the past. That book opened something inside me. I wasn’t alone. Even gods had to bleed.

Sometimes my grandma, quiet and frugal, would take me to the 99 Cents Store. She’d press a crumpled $5 bill into my palm and say, “Pick what you want, mija.” I'd fill my arms with coloring books and cartoon treasures. Then we’d bake cookies together—simple moments that glowed against the darkness.

But behind the art and the stories lived a truth I couldn’t type away.

I had mute autism. I barely spoke a word in elementary school—not because I didn’t want to, but because I couldn’t. Words caught in my throat like thorns. My principal once tried to bribe me: “If you talk, I’ll give you $3.” But I stayed silent.
Because I was afraid.
And because nobody ever really listened.

The world was cruel to quiet girls. I begged my grandma to let me leave public school. I had this naïve dream that Catholic school would be better—full of kind, gentle kids who didn’t laugh when you walked by. I thought maybe the bullying would stop.

But bullies don’t vanish just because you change buildings.

In 5th grade, a girl named Jacqueline stared at me like I was filth and whispered, “Your hair’s so greasy.” She wasn’t wrong. My hygiene was a mess. My grandma, set in her old-school ways, wouldn’t let me shower every day or shave my legs, even when puberty came and the hair grew thick and dark.

Twice a week we had P.E., and that meant wearing shorts. It meant exposure. Erika Pert laughed at me like I was a circus act.
“You look like a boy,” she hissed.
“Trying to be gay or something?”

Her words cut sharper than razors, and I wasn’t even allowed to hold one.

I was ashamed of my body, ashamed of myself. I would cry nearly every day after school, curling up with the only voices that never hurt me—the Spice Girls. Their songs gave me something like strength, a rhythm to hold onto in the storm.

And so I wrote. I sketched. I imagined.
Because in the real world, I was silent.
But inside my own, I was louder than a hurricane

 

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Chapter 2 F.U. Dave

The early 2000s.
A different world. No school uniforms, no filters, no mercy.
Girls wore skirts so short they dared the wind to shame them. Hip-hugger jeans clung to bones and rebellion. Hair was dyed in shades of fire—purple, red, black as sin.
There were no rules.
And even if there were… no one cared.

High school wasn’t a building. It was a battleground.

The cliques were kingdoms.
Goths, drenched in eyeliner and sorrow.
Cheerleaders, smiling knives in disguise.
Preppies, crisp and cruel.
Gangstas, hard-edged and swaggering.
Surfers, breezy and detached like they didn’t belong to land.
Everyone had their corner. Their label.
And me?
I was somewhere in the shadows, trying to breathe, trying to survive.

I was in the 9th grade, in Mr. Peralta’s science class.
He was built like a tank—muscular, strict, with the face of a war-hardened rockstar. He looked like Henry Rollins with a ruler.
He assigned me to the back row—where dreams go to die.

And that’s where I met my tormentor.
David.

David was nothing special—skinny, wiry, with a ratty little patch of facial hair he thought made him look tough.
He was all bark, no soul.
But to me… he was a nightmare.

“Fat ass,” he’d whisper, loud enough for the whole row to hear.
Wedgies so hard they felt like electric shocks. I would cry. The kind of cry you try to swallow, but it chokes you anyway.
And every time—laughter.
From the back row.
From the shadows.

David was disgusting.
He’d say things like,

> “I have a mole on my pubic bone—girls don’t care, ha ha.”

 

And then…
He’d look straight at me and hiss,

> “If you go on Jenny Jones and say I bullied you, I’ll put your ass on blast. I’ll trash you.”

 

Jenny Jones.
That old daytime show where kids would confront their bullies in front of the world.
David thought he was invincible.
He thought he was the villain in charge of my story.

But he was wrong.

What he didn’t know was that every insult, every sting, every broken laugh he left in my chest…
was turning into music.

I wrote my first song.
I called it “F.U. Dave.”
It was fire and fury, screamed into the speaker of my karaoke machine, the only microphone I had.
Therapy in melody. Vengeance in lyrics.

I wasn’t just crying anymore.
I was fighting back—with art.

But the bullying didn’t stop.
It went on for months.
Until one day, I had enough. I walked up to Mr. Peralta—the strong, silent teacher—and reported David.
I expected justice.
I wasn’t sure I got it.
But I took back a piece of power that day.

David’s final words to me were not just cruel.
They were inhuman.

> “Your ass is so happy you left me. Get to sit in the front row now, hot shot! You’re so ugly, no one would rape you. I’ll never take your virginity, you nerd.”

 

That was the last time I let him steal my oxygen.

Let this be known:
I am fiercely and unapologetically against bullying.
To tear someone down—piece by piece, day after day—and feel nothing?

That’s a monster.

Teenagers aren’t supposed to be monsters.
But David was.

And still…
I survived him.

He didn’t silence me.
He inspired me.

And to that, I say again—
F.U. Dave.

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Between 2003 and 2004, before the cold walls of the Los Angeles group home closed in around me, I found a light in the darkness—a rebellion, a scream, a sisterhood hidden in ink and paper.
I discovered riot grrrl zines.

It started in the neon glare of Tower Records, the kind of place that felt like church to a broken teenager. I picked up a small, punk-stained book about zines, and a few scratched-up L7 CDs that howled like thunder in my headphones. That moment changed me. I wasn’t just a girl anymore. I was a riot.

On weekends—because school was hell and weekdays belonged to torment—I poured my pain and fire into paper. I made my own zines, raw with collages, messy artwork, black marker poetry, glued-up pieces of my soul. I’d sneak to the copy machine store, feeding my last few wrinkled bills into the tray just to print them.
Those pages were my survival.

But not everyone understood.
My grandfather—stoic, sharp-eyed, stuck in his own era—never supported my art. He saw it as nonsense. He didn’t want to give me money for “paper trash.”
But he didn’t know that making those zines was the only thing keeping me sane.
He didn’t know that those pages were the only place I didn’t feel invisible.

And when school crushed me—when every hallway echoed with cruelty and judgment—I clung to music videos on MTV and MTV2 like they were life support.
Saturday nights meant headphones on, eyes closed, and letting Courtney Love scream the rage I was too scared to speak aloud.

Those weekends were my only breath of freedom.
And with every zine I stapled together, I carved out a tiny space in a world that tried so hard to silence me

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Chapter 3– August 2004: The Group Home

Los Angeles, California.

August 2004.
I had no idea what I was walking into.

From the outside, the group home looked like any other rundown building in the city. But the air around it was heavy—thick with something I couldn’t explain. Fear? Dread? Instinct?

All I knew was this:
I was alone.
And whatever innocence I had left was about to be stripped away.

The very first morning, the routine hit hard.
The girls shuffled out like shadows at dawn, heading to school as if they were sleepwalking through someone else’s nightmare. No one spoke. No one smiled. Everyone had their armor up.
So I kept mine on too.

At recess, I sat by myself beneath a brittle tree, clutching my lunch like it might disappear. They handed us a dry baloney sandwich and a handful of stale chips—food with no soul, just enough to say they fed us.
I didn’t speak.
No one approached me.

Until he did.

A skinny boy with a buzz cut and hollow brown eyes—his name was Jesus. His face looked harmless. But his words? They cut like glass.

> “Weirdo,” he spat, eyes narrowed with disgust.

 

He stared at me like I was some kind of sideshow freak. And I felt it—that sinking shame, that deep crawl under the skin, the kind that tells you you don’t belong.

And then—the moment that still haunts me.
I don’t know if it was Jesus or someone else. Trauma smears the faces, but not the pain.
A boy walked up, pulled out a sharpened pencil, and stabbed me in the hand.

> “That’s what you get, you stupid girl.”

 

The pain lit up my nerves like fire. I don’t even remember if I bled—I just remember the burning, the shock, the rage, and the scream I swallowed instead of letting it out.
I wanted to vanish. I wanted to run. I wanted it all to stop.

But it didn’t.
It got worse.

Just like in kindergarten, I found myself alone again—watching life happen around me, but never in it. Only this time, the stakes were higher. The pain was real.
And the danger wasn’t imaginary.

Then there was Matthew.

One afternoon, after lunch, something in him snapped.

He grabbed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, shoved it into my mouth, and then his hands wrapped around my neck.
He choked me.

I couldn't breathe.
Ten seconds.
Ten long, gasping, terrifying seconds.
The world spun. My heart raced. I thought—this is it. I’m going to die. Right here. Over a sandwich.

And as if that wasn’t dehumanizing enough, he farted in my face—three times.
Three. Times.
The stench made my eyes water and my throat burn.
I wanted to scream.
But what was the point?
No one was listening. No one ever had.

Then came the final blow.
The thing I didn’t want to remember—but can’t forget.

Paul James Lopez.

He violated me in a way that shattered my body and mind.
He ripped out my pubic hairs—not as an accident, not as a joke—but as a weapon.
The pain lingered for hours.
Four unbearable hours.

> “Don’t tell anyone,” he warned, eyes cold as ice.

 

I was seventeen.
Still a kid in so many ways.
And I had no voice.
No defense.
No way to fight back.

Two months later, like some demon returned, he looked at me and snarled:

> “You’re a worthless retard.”

 

Those words broke something in me.
Not because they were true—but because in that moment, I almost believed them.

I finally left that place in July 2005.
But it wasn’t freedom.
It was a transfer.
A new group home in Whittier.
A new chapter of survival.

But this time, I had something with me:
My truth. My scars. And my voice.
And I swore, even if it took years—I would never be silent again

 

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Chapter 4

After surviving the hellhole that was the Los Angeles group home, I believed—naively—that maybe the worst was behind me.

But evil has layers. And my next chapter? It wasn’t healing. It was horror.

My sister Teri, perhaps out of desperation or denial, signed me into another so-called “safe haven” in Whittier, California. They called it a Christian group home. They advertised kindness, structure, and peace. “Free meals,” they said. “Computers for school, music for relaxation. A place to grow, to be loved.”

Lies. All of it. Lies wrapped in stained scripture and delivered with a dead smile.

The home was a prison disguised as a sanctuary, filled with girls who had already been shattered—foster care castoffs, girls straight from lockdown institutions, mental wards, juvenile halls. Each of us had our own nightmares. And this place didn’t care to heal them—it only made them worse.

The warden of this trap was Lauren Piazza, the woman who owned and ran the home with a cold fist and a twisted sense of morality. She was in her sixties—skeletal, worn out, with a short, shapeless haircut that looked hacked off in a bathroom mirror. Her lips were thin, her teeth a dull yellow like old corn. She wore tired, mismatched clothes that clung to her like forgotten laundry. Her voice was syrupy sweet when you first met her—too sweet, like spoiled sugar masking something rotten underneath.

She promised no pressure about church. “This is a safe place. You’ll never be forced into anything,” she said.

But Lauren was no shepherd.

She was a predator in a god costume.

She starved me, day after day, until my stomach screamed and my body trembled. I would ask—beg—for something, anything. A cracker. A piece of bread. Even water.
She refused.

My lips cracked. My head spun. My body weakened. I could feel myself wasting away. My electrolytes were crashing. I was fading. Dying inside that house.

And there was no food in sight.

The kitchen was a ghost town. The fridge buzzed with emptiness. No milk. No fruit. Nothing but air. And worse? Rats. Dead ones. Their tiny corpses were scattered in corners, left to rot as if that was normal. As if we deserved to live among decay.

This place wasn’t a group home. It was a tomb for girls no one wanted.

I had to run.

I gathered every ounce of strength left in my bones, and I ran. I didn’t know where I was going—I just knew I had to escape that house of cruelty.

And somehow, with blistered feet and a pounding heart, I made it back to the only place that ever truly tried to love me: my grandma’s house

 

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Chapter 5 – Ink and Ashes

Only four months into the quiet safety of my grandmother’s home, death came knocking.
It didn't arrive with a scream—it crept in through the clinical negligence of a nurse who miscalculated a dose.
And just like that, my mother was gone.
She was only 42 years old.
Her life, erased.
My anchor, severed.

The silence after her death was deafening. No therapists. No healing hands.
Just me and my grief, raw and unspoken.

So I turned to what wouldn’t leave me.
Food.
It never judged. It never walked away.
I ate to numb the ache, to dull the memories, to silence the echo of everything she would never say again.
I didn’t know it then, but I was grieving with every bite.

And then—like some strange twist of fate—I found myself enrolling at Long Beach City College.
Still broken. Still bleeding inside.
But I was moving forward… somehow.

We took a field trip to Fullerton, California. I still remember the sun that day, the dusty warmth of the pavement, and how the world felt suspended for a moment.
It was there I met Gustavo Arellano, a firebrand journalist whose words carried weight and wit.
Inspired, I wrote an article about him, pouring my spirit onto the page. It wasn’t just an assignment—it was my resurrection.

By the end of the semester, I had received a journalism scholarship and an award for Best Journalist.
In 2007, newspapers still had a heartbeat—and so did I.
In the quiet, I sometimes dared to believe that it was my mother’s spirit in heaven guiding my hand, whispering through the ink, "Keep going."

But the joy was short-lived.
The same journalism class that once felt like family turned cold.
They drank.
They snuck alcohol into the office and laughed while I sat there, sober, furious, and unseen.
I loved words. I believed in truth. I craved clarity and sobriety.
But they just wanted to party.

In 2015, I walked away.
I left Long Beach City College—not in failure, but in defiance.
I chose my sobriety, my indie music, and the book that would carry my truth.

Because I wasn’t done.
I was just getting started

 

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Final Words – A Prayer for the Lost and the Living

I wrote this book because the world needs to remember.

It needs to remember a time—the 1990s—when elementary schools were battlegrounds,
and children like me were left to bleed in silence.
Back then, bullying was not taken seriously.
It was laughed off, ignored, buried beneath phrases like “kids will be kids.”
But those words?
They were like daggers—deep, invisible, and cruel.
And the scars?
They're still here.
They beat quietly inside my chest, decades later.

This book is my time machine.
A return to the lonely desks.
The mean playgrounds.
The cruel glances.
The years I begged for someone to notice the pain—
and no one did.

Bullying is not a phase.
It is a fire that burns into adulthood.
It warps confidence, poisons joy, and shackles the soul.
We must fight for the quiet children.
We must protect their innocence.
We must demand consequences for cruelty.

And through it all, there is one light that has never dimmed:
my mother.

She left this world too soon.
She was only 42.

A careless nurse mismanaged her medication—
and just like that, I lost the one person who made me feel seen.
The grief nearly destroyed me.
I turned to food, to numb the pain.
I had no therapy, no roadmap, just sorrow and silence.
But somehow… I survived.

And I believe—deep in my soul—
that my mother helped me from the other side.
She walks with me in dreams.
An angel. A protector.
She speaks to me in the deepest part of the night,
reminding me: You are not alone.

She is why I succeeded in journalism.
Why I won awards.
Why I never gave up, even when the world told me I should.

I miss her so much it aches like a second heartbeat.
But I carry her kindness. I carry her love.
And I carry her legacy in these pages.

Now, at 39, I am still visited by angels.
I am deeply spiritual.
I believe in heaven.
I believe in mercy.
And I believe that every child deserves love, safety, and the chance to live.

That is why I fight.
That is why I speak.
That is why I am pro-life.
Because every baby deserves a chance to breathe.
To laugh.
To dream.

Have faith in God.
Hold tight to hope.
And if you’ve ever felt like no one saw your pain—
know that I did.

I see you.
I hear you.
And this book is for you