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A large black truck appears fro out from the cab I bet that’s Ronin’s truck and I bet that text was froo back inside and start the shower This tub is cool for baths, but as far as the shower goes, it sucks There’s like one of those kits they use to turn claw-foot tubs into showers, which means I have to stand there and use a hand-held sprayer every time I want to rinse

"Oh, Rook," I say out loud as the bubbles strea in a homeless shelter twice a week if you were lucky And now you’re all high-and- used to things fast

This is not good I’ve been here two days and I’raphers and weird guys naue Japanese killers who think they can order food for you and strip you naked after they break into your apartment

I finish up in the shower and wrap the towel around et back to the bedrooave me yesterday I haven’t spent any of it and I won’t, either I’iveit all up Because if there’s one thing in life I can count on, it’s that eventually, nois under your feet, someone always pulls it out from under you eventually

I pull my jeans and t-shirt on and slip back out the front door to make my way into the studio kitchen There’s not e, and a few frozen dinners in the freezer that have names on little sticky notes attached to the someone’s frozen skinny oes on in a photography studio, or how models act, or what they eat, or how they stay so skinny or what happens if they get fat

But I can take a good guess

I’m thin because I was born this way I’m tall because I was born this way I’ence I suppose, but I can’t do much with math And I don’t pretend that I can understand politics or current events or scientific studies that tellon a cell phone PrettyI know I learned from a movie I’m crazy about movies and if I was pushed to describeMy dreao to film school and make cool movies Deep movies that have so many layers to theet all the little inside jokes and nuances

As a girl growing up in America you’d think I had it all I mean, they fill you up with that we’re-all-equal bullshit your whole life You can grow up to be anything, ht before they sent me back into the system, most of the time But what they never mention is that dreams require et-go if you ask et the equality crap Because the facts are the facts If sorade and drilled it into my head that life is difficult, ine, and that success is neither guaranteed nor probable, and if they’d have followed that up with a step-by-step approach on how to get past all the pitfalls I ht not have tasted the poisoned honeywhen he foundaway froreedily accepted it as tasty

Downright delicious, even

They do us no favors, talking us up about women astronauts and lawyers and whatever Because the cold hard reality is that none of those things apply to you when you’re poor

Unless you’ve got soirls have this in their parents, but not everyone has parents and even fewer have good parents--you’re screwed unless you figure it out yourself And in et here, that’s for sure

I have very few assets But the ones I have I plan on using to s, blue eyes, and black hair My tits are bigger than most models I’ve seen, but they’re not pn -star ht white sht not have much, but I have this I have looks I have The Look, if these people aren’t blowing smoke up my ass I have what they want So I’a sisterhood, or the cushy life they’re givingI know someone important said that, but I have no idea who it was I just know it’s true So I’ot and I’onna ride this wave until it spits me back out on the beach of bullshit

Because I know better now

I’ve seen what being poor and stupid and scared does to you I looked at it in theback there Andlike my ex, but I can’t take the chance I have raphy studio is just one et to the place in life where I want to be

I grab my phone and tenties fro them, but it’s stupid to leave home without a phone and money, so I’m not about to do that And I leave the safety and seclusion of the studio and go back out in to the real world to get my own dinner