(1/5) “It was my first time on a plane. A van met me at the...

(1/5) “It was my first time on a plane. A van met me at the airport and we drove 90 minutes until the paved roads end. Then we turned down a gravel road, onto a working cattle ranch, and that’s where the school was located. It was beautiful. It should have been, it cost $20,000 a year. These kids had laptops, and name brand clothes. They’d gotten cars for their sixteenth birthdays. Some of them were boarding their horses there. But more than anything, I noticed all the Moms and Dads. On that first day I saw so many Moms and Dads, helping their kids carry suitcases, hugging them goodbye. My stuff was crammed into a duffel bag. And I was all alone. I was smart enough to not tell anyone that I’d been in foster care. But it was obvious I didn’t belong. My first week I had to get a job at the convenient store with the other scholarship kids. I babysat my teacher’s kids. On weekends there’d be these off-campus trips to the shopping mall or movie theater. But the van cost $15, so I could rarely afford to go. That still bothers me today. In many ways the school saved me. It helped fill my educational gaps. I learned to ride a horse. But it was hard too. I had to change dorm rooms three times my freshman year. And I’ll never forget my bully: blonde girl, really skinny, popular. She’d say the meanest things about me within earshot. How I was too poor to pay for school. How my clothes were cheap. I never knew that they were cheap, until I got to that school. But my clothes were cheap. I still have one of the ‘quarterly reviews’ from my freshman English teacher. She wrote: ‘Charell is having a hard time, but she’s starting to adjust. And the dog has taken fondly to her.’ There was a dog named Bill that roamed freely around the campus. Bill was a girl, so Bill was a she. And she was sorta like an unofficial mascot. Bill gave me space. I think she could sense my terror. Whenever she came near, my body would tense up. My heart would start to race. I’ve always been terrified of dogs, ever since I was a little girl. And I’ve always known why. It was never a mystery to me. It wasn’t a hidden memory, or anything like that. I still remember it like it was yesterday.”