Read-Along Week 4: Don’t Escape the System. Outsmart It.
For most of her life, Allison Maxwell was told who she was. Told what was best for her. Told where to live, what to study, how to behave. And for a while, she tried to meet those expectations, even when they felt like a cage. But the girl we saw at the start of this story isn’t the same girl we see now. Something changed—not just around her, but within her. She stopped reacting. She started planning.
This part of the story isn’t loud. It’s quiet. But it’s also the most dangerous thing a young woman can do in a system that feeds on obedience: she stopped asking. She learned the rules. She studied the logic. She documented the failures. And when she finally made her move, it wasn’t to be rescued. It was to reclaim her future.
There’s a specific moment when you stop hoping someone will come in and fix it. It’s not cynical—it’s clarifying. You start noticing the shape of the structure around you. The language it rewards. The way it demands proof from some people but not others. You start to understand what kind of evidence the system requires to even begin to acknowledge harm.
And when that happens, you have a choice. You can despair. Or you can start to gather what you need.
Not every kind of resistance looks like rage. Sometimes it looks like spreadsheets. Like timelines. Like transcripts. Like cross-referenced curriculum records. Sometimes it means knowing the institution well enough to beat it at its own game. And that’s exactly what Allison begins to do. Not just to get out—but to make sense of what she’s been through. To understand what it cost her. And what it nearly erased.
She doesn’t run. She listens. She connects the dots. She collects the right kind of language and learns how to speak it back to the system. The surveillance doesn’t let up. The pressure doesn’t ease. But she gets smarter. Quieter. More precise.
She also learns the parts of the story her parents never told her.
That’s the part that hits differently. Because it’s one thing to challenge a law. It’s another to read the evidence that your life wasn’t always wanted. That your existence was once the subject of an argument. That your birth might have been circumstantial, not chosen. And yet, what she uncovers doesn’t hollow her out. It shows her where the silence came from. It gives shape to the things they couldn’t say.
And finally, they say them.
This arc isn’t just about rebellion. It’s about clarity. It’s about the moment you realize you’re not a puzzle to be solved, or a problem to be placed. You’re the protagonist. The one keeping the receipts. The one rewriting the ending.
There’s no fanfare. No sweeping justice. Just movement. And arrival.
And for the first time, the place she lands isn’t a sentence. It’s a fresh beginning.
Missed the Read Along? You can still get A Ward of the State directly from the author at mewrightauthor.com. Digital and signed print editions available.
