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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—was my low point

I didn’t understand why “barely” graduating high 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 provemom?

Willow Springs Ranch, smack in the middle of Hickville, USA

That’s right 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 synonymous with hell

I was the lucky girl who’d be spending 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 humans could depend on from life was pain

Accepting 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 treated me like I was I was familiar with that act

Moh 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 myself I was

I wasn’t overly 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

A few more people shuffled by, and their attenore me confirmed I did freak well As I fell in line behind the second to last person, my belief that people basically bleent up a few conviction levels

Montana was bit war I noticed as I stepped off the bus The next thing? It already sent tinge was in the air, along with the sweet note of grass and the not-so-sweet note of a sucky summer to come

I alhed I came so close

But I didn’t

I didn’t sigh any showed disappoint disappointment from my life

But I came pretty darn close when I exaht Wide open spaces, no building in sight taller than two floors, and nothing re I was familiar with

“Thislady,” the Greyhound e

“Why would you assu the man’s overdone s?”

That overdone smile fell quicker than my GPA in middle school Apparently Montana and I were already off to a rocky start

“Ehhhno,” thein here”

I glanced at the storage compartments Empty

Well, crap

“Oh” I tookfrom him “Sorry about that”

“I meant no offense” Theup the compartment doors

“Me, either,” I said as I headed away from the bus “It just comes naturally, unfortunately”

My bag had to weigh alht packer, and sporting a black hoodie in the heat of a Montana su wasupround, I plopped down on it I couldn’t tear out of that hoodie fast enough

I was supposed tolot I couldn’t rean with a J and was one hundred and ten percent a cowboy naer, after driving across a couple state lines on a Greyhound busand that was the first step toward proving my responsibility to my mother?

Yeah, that was fked up

Tiltingbuzzards to be circling

Man, even the sky was different Too big and too blue Where I caray on most days, and on the rare day the cloud cover did shift, the sky was never quite blue Al it more days than not

I was just about to close my eyes for a quick siesta and let Mr Ranch-Hand-With-A-Gritty-Cowboy-Naure passed by me

On a typical day, I was passed by hundreds, if not thousands of people Passed by, passed over, passed sohtup, I shielded nore After a second, I understood why

The guy earing positively the tightest, eneration thought guys sporting skinny jeans was socially acceptable

However, that cowboy, in what I could only assulers, had just secured the sash and crown in the Tightest Pants in the Universe title

“Excuse ht Pant Boy tapped the shoulder of the employee I’d snapped at He waited for the e

“Yes?” the e Cowboy’s hand when he extended it

“Is this the bus that calanced up at the s like he was looking for someone

“Sure is Last passenger just got off a few o”

The cowboy’s back was to h his back wasn’t exactly what I zeroed in on My attention had nothing to do with ogling, lusting, or wanting to run my hands all over itI just couldn’t wrapwith pants two sizes too s those butt cheeks

“Was there a young woe?”

“There were lots of young wo a better job ofhis sarcasm than I would have “Do you have a description? Maybe a name?”

“I think she’s blond,his head to the side “Petite, I’I don’t know I’ve only seen a picture of her that’s ten years old”