She was prostituting, pregnant, doing drugs by 14. Now, Taylor girl fights to save her own life.

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MATURE CONTENT WARNING: This story explores drug abuse, sexual abuse and prostitution; it is not suitable for children.

Sitting on plastic chairs arranged in a circle at the edge of the woodsy yard, the girls were barely into their meeting when the 16-year-old from Taylor with welts and scars up and down her arm started to fidget.

It's not the first time the Girl from Taylor has been here, at this camp where teenagers wear uniforms and can't talk without permission. It's not the first time she's gone to bed knowing a minder is sitting across the half-lit dormitory style room, watching her and the others sleep. Or the first time she's pretended not to be upset that her mother seldom visits.

The kids here do that a lot, put on a tough face; it's easier than dealing with disappointment. They've had plenty of that in their lives so far. Caused plenty of it, too. And yet, deep down, most of them have a certain childlike quality they've yet to outgrow. How else do you explain that a girl who became a prostitute at 14 to pay for drugs, still gets excited at the thought of, maybe, someday, going to prom?

Part juvenile detention center, part residential drug rehab, the goal here at the Wolverine Growth and Recovery Center in Vassar — a tiny farm town about two hours north of Detroit — is to save young people ages 12-17 by getting them off weed and opioid pills before they graduate to heroin and end up dead.

It's a race against time.

Because that's the trajectory these days: weed, pills, heroin, which is almost certainly laced with fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid responsible for most of the overdose deaths in Michigan and across the nation. And because 18- to 25-year-olds are more likely than anyone else to use heroin.

The Girl from Taylor — one of about 40 teens here over the summer — is ahead of schedule on that front. She's already used heroin. "I've done enough stuff to put 50-year-olds in the dirt," she said. Once, she mixed heroin with pills and Molly, also known as the party drug Ecstasy, and overdosed, waking up in the hospital with no idea where she was or what had happened. For a few minutes, she thought she might be dead.

She was more engaged in the group therapy circle now, sharing a bit of her background with the other girls: "Once you hear ... like, something so much from one person, you begin to believe it. ... 'You're ugly. You're worthless,' " she said, sounding breathless, from upset or asthma or maybe both.

"I was a kid ...

"He was supposed to be a father."

Her voice disappeared into the rustle of leaves and chatter of branches brought on by a strong, late summer wind. A storm was coming.

Soon she and the other girls — there were eight in the group that day — would be in their cabin, waiting for dinner, maybe engaging in small talk about home and family and life on the outside or, as they call it, "in the community." Nobody wants to be here; they've been sent over by juvenile court judges for violating probation. They're here to serve their sentence — usually between 6 and 9 months — and to get used to living without drugs.

To do that, though, they need to confront the incredible forces, the dysfunction, the hate, the lies and the awful, awful truths that led them to drugs. The Girl from Taylor didn't do that the first time she was here. She completed her sentence, which ran from September 2017 to June 2018. Then she went home to her mother's house, relapsed, returned for two weeks of respite care in December, went home, relapsed again, ran away, got caught and was locked up for a time in the Wayne County Juvenile Detention Facility in Detroit before being sent back to Vassar in February 2019.

She wants things to be different this time.

But if there's one thing circumstances have taught her, it's that wanting something to happen doesn't mean it will.

It's interesting the way people picture drug addicts, almost always conjuring an image of an adult, often a man, stumbling along the street or rushing furtively into a trap house or passed out under a freeway viaduct with a needle in his arm. Hardly anyone ever thinks of kids. Even kids don't think of their peers, let alone themselves, as addicts. "They hold that as a kind of denial," said James Tumidanski, who spent more than a decade working as a therapist at the Vassar center. They think, " 'I'm too young to be an addict.' "

And yet, adolescents — awkward from growth spurts, insecure about fitting in and finding their place, sensitive, impatient for independence — are wired for addiction.

The teenage brain is a work in progress. Doctors compare it to a car without brakes because the part of the brain that processes emotions and feelings of pain and registers the satisfaction of feeling good is fully developed. But the portion that regulates those emotions, that puts them into perspective and makes people stop and think before acting — the prefrontal cortex — is not. It doesn't mature until about age 25.

Because of that, teenagers and young adults are more likely to be impacted by stress, anxiety, depression and peer pressure. They're also more likely to participate in risky behavior — including using drugs to quiet doubts, soothe feelings and numb emotional pain. Last year, according to a study by the federal government, 38.7% of the nation's 18- to 25-year-olds used illicit drugs, compared with 16.7% of people age 26 and over.

Assault, domestic violence, abuse and rape increase the likelihood a teenager will seek out drugs. "The girls just have so much trauma." said Rebecca Lutz, a therapist at Vassar. And "it's not usually just one incident. It's usually a pattern."

Neglected by her meth-addled father, raped repeatedly by another relative, whipped on the back of her legs with a belt swung by her drug-using stepmother and forced to kneel on uncooked grits and rice spread over the floor, a 17-year-old girl from Livonia put it this way: On drugs, "I was on the top of the world, like nobody could take anything from me." Otherwise, "I would try to commit suicide. I was always really depressed because of stuff that happened to me."

There's a lot of that here: depression, anxiety, anger management problems and other mental health issues. Many of the girls acknowledge past suicide attempts and episodes of self-harm. The scars on the Girl from Taylor's arm — she counts 33 — are from the time she dug into her flesh with the jagged stem of a broken wine glass. She wanted to kill herself. “I felt like there was nothing for me," she explained. Even at the camp, girls sometimes sneak pencils into the bathroom so they can cut themselves with the sharp point. Or they use a paper clip. Or their fingernails. Mostly, they'll use whatever they can find, even the bottom corner of a toothpaste tube.

Drug addiction and mental illness are intertwined. One study of teenagers in drug treatment found that more than 60% had a co-occurring mental illness; other experts believe the figure is closer to 75%. And at no time is that connection more apparent than just before bedtime when a member of the Vassar staff pushes the medical cart into the girls' dormitory cabin. One at a time, the girls approach the cart and lean their heads back and open their mouths so the attendant can drop in the pills; they look like baby birds being fed by their mother. (They are not allowed to touch the medication.) The girls then take a sip of water, swallow and open their mouths again to show that they aren't hiding anything under their tongue or inside their cheeks.

"Trazodone, Abilify, Trileptal, Zoloft ... " the Livonia girl said, naming the mood-stabilizing medications she takes every day. "I have a personality disorder, it's where my moods switch up really quick and I can be one person one day and I will be another person the next. ... I do have bipolar issues. I have anger, anxiety, depression ..." She sighed. "I have so much."

The earlier users start drugs, the more likely, and more quickly, they are to become addicts. A family history of drug use or addiction — there's a great deal of that in the families of the young people here — also plays a role. Experts say genetics count for 40%-60% of a person's addiction risk. Gender has a part in this, too: research suggests females become addicted faster than males.

"My mom's an addict, my dad's an addict, I'm an addict," said the Girl from Taylor, who started drinking when she was 10. Her oldest sister, who is living somewhere on the streets, is an addict. She said she will rip off her 18-year-old sister's toenails if she discovers that she, too, is using drugs. "She's seen what I had to go through and what Mom had to go through and my dad had to go through. If she would make that course of action, I would be so upset."

Dinner was over and the Girl from Taylor, back in her dormitory cabin for the night, slipped off her white New Balance sneakers and placed them on a shelf in the tall cabinet where they'd be locked up until morning. The camp confiscates everyone's shoes at night — the kids are allowed to wear slide-on rubber sandals, similar to those worn in locker room showers and some jails, until they get them back. The protocol, the camp staff says, is to deter anyone from escaping into the darkness of night. It's more difficult to run in slide-ons.

Wolverine Growth and Recovery Center is situated on several woodsy lots at the bottom of a dead-end road. The campus includes a half dozen or so unassuming single story-buildings that house dormitories, classrooms, a cafeteria and offices. A gymnasium sits across a parking lot. In some ways, the setting feels like Up North, with perennials lining the sidewalks, tamarack trees scattered across the grounds and at least a gentle breeze even in the dead of summer. It's not unusual to see deer darting through the woods at the edge of the camp, their white tails bobbing up and down as they leap over brush.

The idea is to get the kids, most of whom come from metro Detroit, away from their home environments, their friends and families and anyone or anything else that might be a distraction to their rehab — the pot shop and liquor store down the road and around the corner, closer to downtown Vassar, population slightly more than 2,500, notwithstanding.

About 75% of the kids at the facility —which is run by Wolverine Human Services, the largest foster care, adoption and independent living agency in Michigan — are boys. They and the girls are not allowed any contact. Each group has its own classrooms, its own cafeteria times, its own therapy schedules — the boys tend to be less likely to open up and also less likely to have been victims of extreme trauma. And, of course, they have their own dormitory cabins.

The institutional beige paneled walls of the girls cabin are decorated with motivational posters promoting recovery, the 12 steps from Alcoholics Anonymous and a reminder that sexual abuse is never OK. Raincoats hang on pegs by the door. Twin beds on metal frames, with headboards against the walls, are arranged in the shape of a block U and covered with identical blue bedspreads.

Staff members searched the cabin the first part of August after getting a tip one of the girls was holding notes from a boy. They unmade beds, flipped mattresses, looked everywhere but didn't find any notes or anything actionable. The girls were off-kilter the rest of the day. No one likes being wrongly accused, especially girls trying to do the right thing after a long time of doing wrong.

Wake-up is at 6 a.m., 7 a.m. on weekends. The girls wash, make their beds and walk across the courtyard to breakfast. They're allowed 10 minutes for each meal. They eat in silence; they aren't allowed to talk without permission at the camp and there's no time for conversation during meals. A minder keeps track of the time.

"Six minute napkin check!" the minder yelled during lunch one day. The girls showed her their napkins.

"Three minutes!" she yelled, as the clock wound down.

"Fifteen seconds, last drink!"

When they were done, the girls scraped their plates over a trash can, lined up an arm's length apart from each other and walked out of the cafeteria building single file, with their hands behind their backs as if they were wearing handcuffs. Camp staff says the posture is a security measure.

There's school five days a week from about 8 a.m. to about 2:20 p.m. The teenagers do their lessons — chemistry, history, English and the rest — on computers; the camp has an online classroom arrangement with the local intermediate school district. A teacher supervises and is available for questions.

For many of the girls, it's the first time they've been to school in ages. They have big dreams. One girl wants to be a chef before turning her attention to a degree in social work. The Girl from Taylor wanted to join the military but figured her post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis would be a red flag to recruiters and that her asthma might be a liability.

Now she wants to be an obstetrician-gynecologist, though she thinks she might like to start out as a phlebotomist. Some days she thinks about becoming a social worker, but only for kids; she doesn't want to deal with adults. She has a nephew with special needs and might want to adopt him. That way she can protect him — maybe because no one was able to protect her — from the world and all of its badness.

"She has a tendency to want to save everybody but herself," Lutz, her therapist, said.

Parents can visit the camp every other week, though many do not. The Girl from Taylor said her mother doesn't visit often because she is without reliable transportation and can't get to the designated meeting spot to catch a Wolverine shuttle to Vassar.

The kids are allowed a weekly 10-minute phone conversation with an authorized family member, usually a parent or guardian but sometimes siblings, too; cellphones are forbidden.

They can receive letters from an authorized family member; Vassar staff members watch the kids read their letters to make sure they aren't getting notes from boyfriends or girlfriends back in the community. Hey, are you holding my mail, the kids sometimes ask staff members. No one is holding their mail. But it's easier for them to think someone is keeping it. That way they don't have to admit their people aren't willing to take the time to write. The Girl from Taylor said she's pretty sure her mother is writing but forgetting to put the letters in the mailbox.

There's therapy every day. The girls write in journals. They discuss the things they did well during the day and the things they didn't do so well. Sometimes, their therapist asks them to list their positive attributes, something many of the girls have difficulty doing because they've grown to despise themselves. Five days a week, usually after school, they have group therapy.

In the evening, after giving up their shoes, the girls take turns using the dormitory bathroom, each getting 13 minutes to undress, shower, wash their hair, dry off, dress for bed in a T-shirt and shorts and brush their teeth. A minder sitting outside the shower times them. The bathroom and shower are the only places the kids are allowed to be out of a monitor's direct line of sight.

There's no jewelry — the Girl from Taylor stuck a staple she found into her ear lobe to keep the piercing from closing. There's also no nail polish, makeup or cologne. No hand sanitizer either because last year one of the kids drank some to get high.

Hair has to be off the shoulders.

Uniforms — sweatpants and shirts in black for newcomers, blue for kids at the beginning of their 12-step program and gray for those who are well along in recovery and free of disciplinary problems — must be worn at all times. "The color," the Girl from Taylor said, "defines who you are."

At the beginning of July, the Girl from Taylor found something on the floor by her bed. She was elated. Wrapped in plastic, her gray uniform. That her therapist, caseworker and some of the staff members had approved her request for the new uniform only made the achievement sweeter. It meant they'd noticed she was doing well and that was something wonderfully new. Few people, it seemed, ever took her side.

She'd returned to the Vassar camp feeling awful about herself. It's unusual for girls to do a second stretch here — they either age out of the juvenile justice system and go to jail or end up on the streets — but police found her holed up at a friend's house and the judge sent her back. She called herself disgusting, selfish and an incredible disappointment. She sounded like her father.

He was abusive; he drank and used drugs and told her she was ugly and worthless and fat. He wasn't always that way, she remembers. He was sober when she was 7 or so. He made crepes for her and her siblings every weekend and dropped her off at latchkey and was calm and for awhile, she had a childhood. She'd give almost anything to go back to that. "It's almost a sacred time," her therapist said. But before long — a few months, maybe more, maybe less — her dad slid back into his addiction. He smacked the Girl from Taylor when he was angry, which was often. Even so, when he and her mom split up, she stayed with him; she disliked her mother's boyfriend and besides, at her father's house, she could pretty much do whatever she wanted.

She started drinking when she was 10. Her father gave her a strawberry margarita, one of those premixed drinks that comes in a foil pouch. Didn't he know she's allergic to strawberries? Or didn't he care? Either way, what the Girl from Taylor remembers most about that day is she had she had to chase her drink with a dose of Benadryl. Before long, she was his weekend drinking buddy. And after that, he started touching her breasts and sticking his hands between her legs. "He wouldn’t put anything in me," she said all these years later. "Now that’s one thing I was conscious enough not to let him do."

By 11, she was drinking every day. After smoking a joint with her dad, she added marijuana to her repertoire. And after that, opioid pills, cocaine, and, ultimately, on occasion, heroin. She felt prettier that way, drunk and high. She was more lovable and smarter. To prove it, she sought out attention from romantic partners. Sometimes she picked girls (she identifies as bisexual). But most often, she went after boys, usually losers and usually — as is the pattern with girls who start drugs young — considerably older. One day, her 15-year-old boyfriend paid her the ultimate compliment: You're more mature than most 11-year-olds, he said.

Drugs betrayed her the way they betray everyone who falls for them. They made her skip school and run away from home — even after she moved back in with her mother when she was 11½. Once she was gone so long that the authorities, fearing she might be dead, requested her dental records.

Drugs made her steal a car and crash it into a house, another suicide attempt.

Drugs turned her into a prostitute.

She was 14 the first time she had sex with a stranger for money. An ex-boyfriend, who acted as a pimp for other young girls, recruited her.

"I know you need money and I know you like attention from guys," he said. "I can help you with that."

"Sure," she replied without hesitation because, the way she figured it, she didn't have anything to lose.

The money was good. The base rate: $250, of which she kept about 65%. Sometimes, her ex-boyfriend-turned-pimp would instruct her to charge extra — $500 or more — because it turns out men who like to have sex with children are willing to pay a premium. The Girl from Taylor dressed the way the guys liked — in short and skimpy skirts or dresses, no bra or panties. Except for anal sex, she did everything they wanted. She worked in Detroit and Dearborn, in motel rooms with mold around the toilets and no soap in the showers or cases on the pillows. One guy, who always wore a light-colored shirt and stained jeans, insisted she meet him in the front — and only — seat of his green pickup. There was garbage on the floor and the inside of the truck smelled like McDonald's and flatulence and when the man was done with her, he'd clean himself off with a red rag, the kind mechanics use. You make me want to put you in a sack and keep you in my closet forever, he told her once. He never tried to kidnap her. But she was glad she carried pepper spray.

She had other repeat clients. She saw a guy who warned her not to tell his wife what they were doing, though she hadn't a clue as to his wife's identity. She also saw a guy on whom she had a crush and probably still does because she still giggles when she mentions his name. He was maybe 30, not too fat and not too slim. And cute. And nice. I know what we're doing is wrong, he told her. If you were just a little bit older, we could have something real. "I think we both equally enjoyed each other's company," the Girl from Taylor said.

But, God, she hated herself for what she was doing. She hated herself so much she took a razor to her bare thighs every day she worked as a hooker. Seeing the blood trickle down her legs made her feel like a real person, not the zombie for drugs and sex she'd become.

Even now, doing well in treatment, earning the confidence of the staff, she remained haunted by her past, paralyzed, almost, by all the bad. She heard the taunts in her mind — fat, ugly, stupid. She cried about her best friend, who cut his wrist and died, and how she found him in his bedroom and tried to scream but couldn't make a sound and how maybe, if she'd answered his texts from the night before instead of hanging out with her new boyfriend, he would still be alive. She thought about the times she overdosed. About the boyfriend who put her in cold water instead of calling an ambulance. "He claimed he loved me a lot," she said, "but the thing is, if I would have seen him overdosing, I would have been on the phone, like, 'Yeah, my boyfriend is overdosing. I need some help right now.' "

She thought about the miscarriage she had when she was 14. She thought about her father and how much she wanted to hate him for what he did to her but couldn't because sometimes she blamed herself for what happened. Sometimes she wondered: What if I hadn't taken that first drink from him? What if I'd worn different clothes around him? What if I'd told someone what was going on instead of keeping it to myself, thinking he'd stop if I stayed quiet?

She thought, too, about where she would end up once her time at Vassar was over. As much as she missed her mother, as much as she longed to crawl into her lap — "even though I'm a little bit fatter than I used to be and a little bit taller, she still lets me" — the Girl from Taylor knew she couldn't live with her. At least not yet. She'd come to that conclusion on her own; her therapist thought it showed great maturity because it meant she was finally putting her sobriety first. There's just too much going on at her mother's house. Her sister's ex-boyfriend is in and out and he brings drugs with him. "People might say, 'Yeah, I have enough willpower,' " she said. "But when there's a bag of pot lying there and you know that, don't tell me you're not tempted. ...There's something in you that flips if you're an addict and just takes complete and full control." And if that happens, if she uses again, she knows she will fall quickly into the depths of her addiction. "I almost died a whole bunch, a lot, probably more than I can count on all of my body parts," she said. "I'm not ready to die yet."

She'd wanted to get into a semi-independent living program where she'd stay in a group home, finish her high school degree, work on her recovery and learn to live on her own. But her application was rejected because of her extensive history of drug use; she is further along in her addiction than most of the girls at Vassar.

Sometimes, the Girl from Taylor — who took medication for mood disorders — still thought about killing herself.

At the beginning of August, her funk started to lift. Feeling better, she joined the other girls in a gym class soccer game. It was fun, so much fun being part of a group, so much fun acting like a kid.

But then, while trying to get the ball, she accidentally touched another one of the girls. And the other girl accused her of doing it on purpose, of trying to grope her.

The Girl from Taylor felt someone shove her and it reminded her of the way her father used to shove her, though later the others would say no one pushed her, that she'd imagined it. She reached for the other girl's neck and the two ended up on the floor fighting. The Girl from Taylor got kicked on the side of her forehead and for awhile, she had a mark on her face.

"My head hurts; I feel kind of tired," she said afterward.

But something hurt even more: the idea that someone might think of her as a predator.

As punishment for the fight, she lost her gray uniform.

At group therapy near the end of August, one of the girls brought up her mostly absent father. She'd learned from her mother that he was being swallowed alive by his addiction She was terrified he was going to overdose and die and that if he did, it'd be all her fault because, as his daughter, she should be doing more to help him. She should be spending time with him and not settling for him only coming around a couple times a year. She should be taking care of him. If anyone could make him change, she could. "I think he cares about me the most, just out of everything," she said. Except as soon as she heard herself, she stopped. "Meth and cocaine," she acknowledged, (are) probably first" on his list. But still, his situation is all her fault.

It wasn't, of course. Lutz was trying to make her understand that. Shame and guilt will only hurt you, she said. Shame and guilt will make you relapse. Did he ask you for help? Did he keep in touch with you? He's your father. Isn't it a father's job to have a relationship with his child? Has he tried having a relationship with you?

The girl didn't answer.

It is profound, the amount of guilt and worry the girls carry with them from all the lying, stealing and cheating that accompanies addiction. And from the hurt they inflicted on family members — even family members who hurt them first. Because as bad as it gets, everyone wants to belong to a family. Families are supposed to be about love. And the girls here are desperate for that.

Which is why the Girl from Taylor, sitting in the therapy circle with the others, was so concerned about her mother. In frail health, living on disability payments, working on her own recovery, her mother was under orders to move out of the house where she'd been living; the landlord had other plans for it. Where would she end up? Where would she find the money for a move? What would the stress of relocating do to her?

"My (probation officer) tells me all the time not to worry about adult things, but that’s hard because that’s where my brain goes," the Girl from Taylor said. "It's just first nature for me to worry about how (my mother's) feeling and money issues and the house being clean and stuff like that. ... I did have to grow up fast. I did have to learn how to do certain things. … I did have to learn how to shut off emotions when I didn't want to feel them. I did have to learn how to say, 'I'm OK' when I feel like crying deep down inside. Everyone says, 'Cherish your childhood.' But I never felt like I had one until it was too late to go back."

And now something else was weighing on her mind: A foster family wanted to give her a home. Moving in with them would mean being able to call her mother on the phone anytime she wanted. Plus, she'd go to a public high school, participate in an extracurricular activity and, maybe best of all, go to prom. "I didn’t get to have a childhood like I should have. ... I'm definitely going to prom, now that I've missed every other thing," she said, her voice giddy about the possibility of hair extensions and pink or red lipstick and eyeliner and red heels and a red dress that's tight, but not too tight. Of all the kids out there who need a place to live, the foster family wanted her. She couldn't believe her luck. She was on the verge of a happy ending.

But after two getting-to-know-each-other visits with the foster family, the

Girl from Taylor started to feel uncomfortable. The foster mother had insisted on buying her a pair of Nike sneakers so kids at the public school wouldn't make fun of her for wearing no-name shoes. And while the Girl from Taylor was grateful, she felt guilty accepting them. Her mother had never been able to afford logos or labels. Growing up, "I didn't care what I was wearing," she told Lutz after spending the weekend with the foster family. "I always had a winter coat, whether it was my sister's winter coat or it was my brother's winter coat. I was happy with what I had."

She couldn't help but worry that moving in with another family — and accepting the shoes and whatever else they might provide — would amount to a betrayal of her own mother. She thought about her father and how he'd eventually signed away his parental rights to her and how hurt she'd been because signing those papers meant he didn't want her. Would her mother feel the same way, unwanted because living with another family is different than living in a facility or a group home. Or would her mother understand the Girl from Taylor needed to stay with the other family in order to stay alive?

The girl in group therapy was still talking about her own father when, suddenly, the Girl from Taylor spoke up. She told the group that she, too, used to blame herself for everything her father did but that she'd been wrong to do so.

"Part of me had to realize my dad is a grown-ass man and he's never changing," she said. "He wasn't caring about me when I was 10 years old and needed my medicine or he molested me. ... I was a kid, what was I doing that was so wrong?"

She sounded angry.

On Aug. 28, the Girl from Taylor left the Vassar camp.

She said her goodbyes to the girls in the classroom.

"Have fun, do everything right. I'll be out there soon," one of the girls said.

"Don't come back," another said.

"I love you guys. Do good," the Girl from Taylor said.

She said goodbye to some of the staff members, who also told her they hope not to see her again.

Her belongings — a couple of books, plants she'd tried to grow, some paperwork — had been packed in a cardboard box, which was waiting for her on her bed.

She caught up with Lutz, the therapist.

"I'm scared," the Girl from Taylor said.

She was still shaken by the incident at the soccer game, how that other girl had accused her of touching her on purpose. And how quickly her temper had turned and how she'd ended up in a fight. "That's something my dad would have done," she said. "I'm scared because I feel like I'm becoming a little bit more like him. When I get into an argument and I get petty, my dad used to do that. I just have a real short temper, like my dad. It's like that with him. I feel like I'm becoming my dad. I do stupid things just like him." She looked like she might cry.

"Do you want him to continue controlling your life or do you want to take charge?" Lutz asked.

"I try so hard not to be like him," the Girl from Taylor said.

Shortly before noon, she climbed into the back seat of a sedan and rode to start a new life with the foster family.

Contact Georgea Kovanis: gkovanis@freepress.com