When she returns home, the house is empty. Phone in hand, she tries to call her mother, only to hear the static-filled ringing of a dial tone. The anonymous junior, 14 years old at the time, walked down the street to her grandmother’s house to ask why her mother wouldn’t pick up the phone.

It was then that she found out her mother had been arrested.

That was three years ago. After her mother was put in prison, she had little choice but to move to Cupertino with her father and stepmother. To her, the news of her mother’s arrest wasn’t surprising — her mother had a lot of bad habits. On Dec. 27, 2016, her mother was released from prison and now lives at the junior’s grandmother’s house. Not having her mother there for the past three years has been rough at times, but fortunately the friends she’s made at MVHS have made getting used to the city an easier transition. But she admits that she’s still trying to find the silver lining in it all.

She recalls how her mother was accused of hitting her mother’s then-boyfriend with her car. After the night of her arrest, her mother returned to explain to the anonymous junior what had happened. Her mother explained that an important detail had been left out: he was the one that ran in front of the car. With alcohol use negating the credibility of the accounts from that night, the police could only confirm that her mother had hit him, and soon after, her mother was put behind bars, where she’d spend the next three years.

The anonymous junior struggled with it at first. Even though the arrest had been of little surprise to her, she still wished her mother was by her side. She had this lasting thought that perhaps her mother could’ve chosen to get away from the bad influences around her. But she didn’t.

As time passed, she came to realize that that viewpoint was slightly selfish — she wasn’t the only one suffering. During her three years in prison, her mother rarely received any letters — people seldom even spoke to her. And even when her mother left prison, she was still quite alone with nowhere to move except the junior’s grandmother’s small house.

When her mother was released, the anonymous junior was relieved. Yet it’s still hard for her to not be at her mother’s side when she wants to help her mother continue improving her lifestyle. But at least now, she can find her mother a phone call away, though that wasn’t the case back then.

“I couldn’t call her or text her whenever I wanted to tell her how bad my day was so that was kind of rough and not being able to know what she’s going through,” the anonymous junior said. “I was always stressing and wondering what she was doing, worrying if she was okay.”

At least now, there’s comfort in the texts they send each other at least every other day, if not more frequently.