She walks to school with the lunch she packed
Nobody knows what she’s holdin’ back
Wearin’ the same dress she wore yesterday
She hides the bruises with linen and lace

The teacher wonders but she doesn’t ask
It’s hard to see the pain behind the mask
Bearing the burden of a secret storm
Sometimes she wishes she was never born

Through the wind and the rain
She stands hard as a stone
In a world that she can’t rise above
But her dreams give her wings
And she flies to a place where she’s loved
Concrete Angel

Somebody cries in the middle of the night
The neighbors hear, but they turn out the lights
A fragile soul caught in the hands of fate
When morning comes it’ll be to late

Through the wind and the rain
She stands hard as a stone
In a world that she can’t rise above
But her dreams give her wings
And she flies to a place where she’s loved
Concrete Angel

A statue stands in a shaded place
An angel girl with upturned face
A name is written on a polished rock
A broken heart that the world forgot

Through the wind and the rain
She stands hard as a stone
In a world that she can’t rise above
But her dreams give her wings
And she flies to a place where she’s loved
Concrete Angel

--“Concrete Angel”--
By Martina McBride

Prologue

I remember Freshman year a lot better than I remember a lot of things. Better than a lot of things that I actually liked. It was the year everything changed. Or at least where all the changes began.

I was thirteen, young to be in high school already. I was just getting breasts. I was just beginning to become pretty. And it was the last thing in the world that wanted.

Actually I began getting boobs when I was eleven. Then at twelve I they became noticeable so I bound my chest flat. But at thirteen that no longer worked, they were too big. I tried loosing weight in hopes that they would shrink… but they didn’t. Even at 5’6” and 85 pounds they were still unable to hide. My waist too had grown shapely, and my hips were wide with a firm, but well rounded, butt out back.

I, literally, became a woman—in body—over night after loosing my bindings. My whole school noticed. The girls were torturous and the guys… They hunted me down like I was the ultimate prey, or with teenagers: the double bacon cheese burger on the menu. Still, I could have managed just fine if one person hadn’t noticed.

But he had.