Introduction

The day of my SATs, my first step toward freedom, began with a slap.

Our Texas ranch was a river of mud, and the testing center was twenty miles away.

My father, a self-made oil tycoon, didn' t even look up as I begged for fifty dollars.

"Fifty dollars? Do you think money grows on trees, Gabrielle?" he sneered.

Then came the slap, hard and fast, echoing through our cavernous living room.

"Lazy and entitled," he spat, stealing the seventeen dollars I' d painstakingly saved.

He kicked me out into the storm, telling me not to return until I'd learned the value of a dollar.

My brother, Andrew, stood by, his face a mask of indifference.

My mother was upstairs, oblivious, probably admiring a new diamond.

As I trudged through the mud, a news report on our giant billboard flashed.

It showed my family smiling on a stage, celebrating a one-million-dollar donation to an arts program in honor of my adopted sister, Molly.

Her achievement? A C+ in art.

They had just slapped me and thrown me out for a fifty-dollar ride to the most important exam of my life.

The image of their smiling faces burned into my mind, washing away the tears I didn' t even realize I was crying.

Defeated, I reached the testing center, only to find the doors locked.

I tore my soggy admission ticket into tiny pieces, letting the rain carry them away.

Something inside me broke. Or maybe, it finally healed.