I'm not saying I'm proud, I just want to be honest.

I'm not good at keeping secrets, especially under pressure.

It's something I learned about myself in high school from a friend I made my senior year.

She was a new student in a very white school, and so it's pretty easy for two black girls

to find each other and become friends.

Back then I felt very self-conscious and I was definitely sheltered, but my new friend

she seemed so cool.

Once she told me a story about how she ran away from home and ended up on the evening news,

I thought she was such a badass.

One day she and I decided to go get tattooed together.

Now my new, neither of us were legally of age, but we had heard about a guy who'd give

you a tattoo no questions asked.

And so for a mere $15 in the kitchen of a big man named Bear, I got my name, In Curse of

Tattooed on the small of my back.

And my friend, she got her name tattooed on her back too.

This tattoo was my first and only real act of teenage rebellion.

And I hid it maybe a month before it was accidentally exposed at Thanksgiving dinner.

And when my parents confronted me about the tattoo, I, the snitch, sang like a bird.

You can see where this is going.

And my tattoo sister found out that I told everything it very easily marked the end of our

friendship.

She couldn't trust me and a lot of our mutual friends agreed I couldn't be trusted either.

...