On Fridays during the last period of the school day, I had my art class. I was working on a still life. The teacher, Ms. Collins, gave a mild approving look at a boy's painting. She quietly commented on the painting of another girl. She went over to mine and examined it carefully: the way the colors blended and the shadows of the fruit and vase were outlined in flowing borders. Then she said, "This belongs in your portfolio." I gave a sort of friendly glare at Ms. Collins. We'd talked about the subject of my applying to an art college at least a hundred times. It wasn't nearly as bad as my conversations with my parents, but it was still annoying. On the other hand, Ms. Collins was my mentor. I could talk to her about anything and everything. I showed her my dark drawings. She loved them and didn't tell me to stop drawing them and go to therapy.

"Come sit down," she said, "I want to show you some things." We walked over to her desk. On it were brochures for the Lyme Academy College of Fine Art, the Montserrat College of Art, the American Academy of Art, the Savannah College of Art and Design, the School of Visual Arts, and SUNY Purchase. She had copies laid out in front of her, like she had taken them out especially for me.

"I want you to take these," she said. With talent like yours, it would be a waste not to apply and you could get into all of them." I was about to argue, when Ms. Collins gave me a smile. I knew that I couldn't say no to her.

Ms. Collins had told me constantly that Art schools were different from other colleges. There weren't any required literature classes. Just math, art history, and I could draw and paint all day. I still wouldn't buy it, but when I got home, I actually did look through the brochures. Everyone looked so happy, just drawing and painting and sculpting. There were pictures of kids laughing in the cafeteria. Along with booklets filled with information about the school, there were also lots of pictures of people's works, paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, etc. It was all amazing. At that moment, I wanted to be a part of that. The drawings in the booklet were a lot better than mine, but I wanted to learn more and possibly get up to that level. I wanted to laugh in the cafeteria. The kids weren't wearing Abercrombie or Lacoste; they were wearing hippie and urban and even Goth clothes. At this point, I was completely sucked in. I eventually had to leave the brochures on my bed and began my homework. I think that my mind was half-trying to understand Paradise Lost and half-trying to figure out if I should visit any of the campuses when my Dad came into my room.

"Ever heard of knocking?"

"Don't you be fresh with me. I just came up here to make sure that you were o-" He noticed the brochures lying on the bed. He whispered the names of the schools to himself as he read them and probably cursed under his breath, too.

"Monica Brooke Gibler, you are such a hypocrite!" he shouted. Then he imitated me in a girlish voice, "Oh Daddy, I want to travel after high school." He changed to his normal voice when saying, "Travel my ass!" My father hardly ever cursed, so I knew that he must have been extremely angry. "Do you honestly expect me to pay for any of these schools? You'll never get anywhere with a career as an artist!"

"Not everyone wants to be a doctor or a lawyer, Dad." I said without even looking up from my book, "Besides, they have scholarships."

"I will not let you apply for a scholarship!"

"Dad, by the time I can apply, I'll be eighteen or nineteen. How do you expect to stop me from applying?" Dad struggled to think of what comeback to yell at me with next, but he couldn't come up with one. He just threw is hands up and shouted "Argh!" He then left the room. I think that it was my Dad's persistence for me not to have anything to do with these colleges that made me do the opposite. I looked at the address for the School of Visual Arts. Then I made a phone call. Then I looked at the website where my parents did online banking. Then, finally, I looked at another website which listed train schedules. I had five hundred dollars in the bank. There was a tour going at the school at 11:00 the next morning. There was an eight o'clock train going into New York City the next morning. Lydia and I would get to school at seven o'clock and I could easily walk around the building after I parked the car, making Lydia think that I was going to class. Then I could drive to the bank, get my money, drive to the train station, get to the school, and take the tour. My parents wouldn't have to know until I eventually applied to some places. The plan was flawless.

* * *

The pictures of the kids in their hippie clothes eating lunch matched the real thing. I had been on the tour for an hour. I had never seen so many high-tech studios in one building. The dorms were nice and people said that the food was good. The artwork was amazing. Many students constantly got their paintings and drawings printed in magazines. I wanted to be here. I wanted to be them. The tour guide then said that if any of us had interviews, we could go to them now in the offices on the 4th floor. A boy named Gabe whipped out his portfolio. Gabe was completely self-centered and over-confident. Every time he saw an amazing portrait, he snubbed it, saying that he had seen or could do better. He was also hitting on me constantly. Fortunately, the school was big enough so that if we both ended up going here, I would be able to easily avoid this buffoon as much as possible. Obviously, I didn't have an interview, but I slowly and nervously took out my drawings. They were the dark ones, since those were my specialty and I rarely did any others. I showed them to our tour guide, Hope. "Wow," Hope said, I love how you portray the emotion so flawlessly." Just hearing that reaffirmed how much I wanted to be here. That was, until Gabe snatched the drawings after Hope handed them back to me. He took a good look at them and said, "Mediocre. They're just stupid drawings of teen angst. I would highly recommend that you try another medium. That is, if you have the skill to. I tried to grab them out of his hand, but he lifted them high up and then handed them to another girl. Then that girl handed it off to another, and another, until everyone had seen my pictures. They aid things like "They are a little dark," "They're kind of disturbing," I wouldn't expect a magazine to accept pictures that sad." I could feel it: the feeling of worthlessness, that I was a person who would never amount to anything and that my birth was a big mistake. I hated myself and I only knew to do one thing in situations like this. But there were no razorblades or hiding places around. I ran out of the place and looked at my cell phone. In ninth grade, I overheard a girl mention the address of a fake ID shop in New York City. It was in Queens, near a decent bar. Miraculously, I hadn't changed my phone since then and it was still on it. But anyway, I didn't have many contacts or pictures of friends that would fill the phone's memory. I hurried to catch the nearest subway.

* * *

I had a picture taken of me that looked like a mug shot and had my name say Brooke Anderson. It was a common last name and I figured that using my middle name couldn't hurt, but I didn't want to use my real first and last. Of course, the date signified that I was born on January 28th, 1987, which would make me 21. My real birth date was August 12th, 1991, making me 17. When I asked for a mug of ale, the waiter looked at me very suspiciously. Without even giving him time to ask, I pulled out my fake ID. He sighed and went to give me my order. I was still depressed, really depressed. I still felt like I didn't matter to the world and that I was hated y everyone and I deserved to be miserable. This was the only way that I knew of to get out of that state if mind besides cutting. In truth, I had never had any alcohol before. My parents never even let me taste their liquor on New Years Eve or Christmas. While I was waiting, I began playing with my cell phone. I opened the notepad from the tools menu and out popped my list of my medications. I couldn't possibly drink this while on my anti-depressants. I guess that my judgment got the better of me that day. I left the money that totaled the ale, what was probably the tax, and the tip, and left the place, to go home and cry in my solitude. On my way home from the subway, an old woman came up to me and said, "Excuse me miss, but do you know where I would find St. Margot's Shelter. They gave me the address on the phone, but it the piece of paper got washed in the rain." I shrugged my head and then the woman went on a tangent about her husband beating the kids and how she didn't know whether he was raping her by forcing her to have unwanted sex, even though he was her husband. I left that woman while she was jabbering on and on. I don't know how long it took before she realized that I had left. She was almost hysterical. I certainly wouldn't want an abusive boyfriend or father, but I still thought that my Dad was a bastard who didn't give a shit about my pain.