Walking down the busy street, I hug my body in my coat as the snow grips my boots. My focus is solely on making it to the bookstore in time for early morning customers. The bookstore, Fine Print, had been a blessing to have been able to get, but working at the store with Victoria gave me more than money. The ability to read and learn all that I was not able to when I was younger was a gift Victoria didn't know she had opened for me.I may have simply thought of them as my parents, but to the world, we lived in, they were immigrants before my parents. Our financials only allowed food, the roof over our heads, and clothes, so after preschool, it became a strain to further my schooling.I knew my Mama was broken by it, raising me no different than she was, but Papa would silence her broken aspirations with words not cruel but no less ignorant. "A woman doesn't need knowledge. She needs a husband." Once he would leave the room she would respectfully dismiss his words, then braid my hair
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