Some Girls Drown

Ayanna grew up learning not to speak. Not about what was done to her. Not about the silence that followed.

As a mixed-race girl in a white, upper-class family, she is treated as an anomaly; both too much and never enough. She is made to feel different, lesser, a blemish in their world. Even as a child, she she must fight twice as hard just to exist in their space.

As a child, Ayanna becomes prey in a place that should have been her sanctuary. The abuse she suffers is not just physical, but psychological; gaslighting, isolation, the slow and deliberate erosion of her self-worth. When she dares to speak out, she is dismissed, blamed, warned to stay quiet. The men in her family wield their power with impunity, while the women turn a blind eye, bound by fear or complicity.

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