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Chapter One

THERE ARE LOW points, and there are low points This--rattling down an endless stretch of interstate in a Greyhound bus toward thehigh school--washigh school was indicative of hoould do in art school in the fall--high school was designed to torture teenagers, not teach theht otherwise

If the art school in Seattle I wanted to attend didn’t cost a fortune and a half, I wouldn’t have given a daht She was on the road so much I was lucky to see her one day a week Even on that one day, she was usually in and out so quickly you would have thought ious I didn’t understand why a wo her one and only span to a science was putting her foot dohen it ca my future

I’d been accepted into the art school I’d been dreaer to Horade and taken Art 101 instead I’d never been so excited about anything in my life But that didn’t matter to Mom She wouldn’t foot the bill for school unless I convinced her I could step up to life’s plate and prove myself a responsible member of society, unlike the drain to it she was convinced I was

So where, in all the possible places, could I proves Ranch, sht A ranch

I’d never been on one, but I didn’t need to in order to know ranches and Rowen Sterling should stay on opposite ends of the universe I was a city girl who’d never been around anything four-legged other than dogs or cats I believed wide open spaces and starry nights were overrated and only idealized so the country ht rural was synony my entire summer up to my knees in "rural"

I wasn’t sure how I’d do it, and I sure as hell didn’t want to do it, but I had to Three months in hell orth four years of art school My life had never been easy, so I knew I could handle whatever waited for ood at "handling" life I didn’t excel at it, and I certainly didn’t thrive at it, but I could handle life and everything it had thrown at me

My secret? I’d simply accepted that life was pain

There wasn’t a rhyme or a reason to the universe and those who occupied it We were here So, but the one thing we hu that had so for happiness and, in so doing, wasn’t living in a steady state of let-down anymore I didn’t let myself hope either That was the real poison that put the vacant expression in so many people’s eyes

I accepted

That was the only reason I was about to hop off the Greyhound bus in western Montana I’d accepted that if I wanted to go to art school, I’d have to pay a pain price to get there

After twelve hours on the road, everyone practically bolted out of their seats theSky Montana" wasn’t anything to bound out of a bus toward, it wasback in the recirculated air that had gotten especially rank the last hundred h the whole trip leapt out into the aisle without a look or wordmy purse, I tucked my hair back into my hoodie and slid the purse strap over my head

I took a few steps toward the aisle and waited for so in one of the first fes Surely the entire bus wouldn’t have to offload before I got to Part ofa seat in the front of the bus was so I could sneak off at the earliest opportunity

As the line of bodies continued by me, it became obvious I would be the last one off I wasn’t invisible to the other passengers They just treatedcartfuls of kids and groceries through the store would shoot lances like they expected ht there in the middle of the cereal aisle When I’d passed my peers in the hall, they narrowed their eyes because I had the audacity to take up space on the planet

People had never ignored me, but they wished they could They wished people like me would just disappear or fall off the face of the earth so they wouldn’t be reminded their little lives were so fake and full of shit

As one guy aboutme a quick once-over, he shook his head and , cheerleader-screay I was teive his back the bird, but for once, I controllednew I lived that at least a dozen tih school

I’d worn so many different labels I lost count People liked to label things; it made them feel like the world , they were the other I guess that made people feel better about themselves If they focused on how screwed up I was, they could pretend they weren’t just as screwed up

I’d been labeled a goth, an eie, a loser, and norant people were: a freak

I’d been called a million and a half other colorful naoth or an eoths and emos I didn’t want a label; I didn’t want to fit into a certain crowd I ho I hat I wore, and did what I did because that ho I was Or at least the person I’d convinced oth or exceptionally sad like an es, but I’d never wandered into first period stoned off ies I wasn’t sure "loser" fit either, since I was a conscientious objector to all things that made conventional "winners" and "losers" out of people So maybe out of all of those labels, the one that fit me best was freak