She has been asked many times why she stayed in a relationship that had become a nightmare. She wants people to understand — it wasn’t always bad. Seth was her first love, and when he was kind, everything felt magical. That’s what she clung to, over and over again.

Doctors rushed to reattach her lip, but the damage was too severe. The torn tissue couldn’t be salvaged. Surgeons had to cut into her cheeks just to stitch the wound closed.

”I remember waking up, looking up to my nurse trying to lighten the air around me, and making a joke about how at least now I wouldn’t have to dress up for Halloween to scare everybody, that I could now go as my self. … She chuckled and nodded then proceeded to bring me to get a mask to cover my face. That was when it hit me; this was my new reality. What I just woke up from was no joke. Never a day in my life will I ever wake up living my “normal” life again.”

Today, a long scar runs across Kayla’s face — a permanent reminder of what happened that night.