“My mom knew I was getting picked on at school. I tried not to...

“My mom knew I was getting picked on at school. I tried not to tell her, but she’d see me come home unhappy every day. She’d open up my binder and see the notes I wrote about hating everyone. She’d tell me to trust in God. And that God was always with me. And not to fight back, because God was working out justice, even if I couldn’t see it. She was the closest thing I ever had to heaven. She was like Mother Theresa. When I was around her my anger would go away. Not completely, but almost. She died when I was twenty-one of esophageal cancer. I feel like The Flash sometimes. His mother was murdered when he was a child, and he’s always obsessing about going back in time to save her. I wish I could go back to a year before they found the cancer, and say: ‘I know you don’t feel anything right now. But you should go to the hospital and get your throat checked.’” (2/3)