Chapter 1

Mom's expression froze.

The look on her face, one of anger and disbelief, reminded me of the first thing she said to me when she visited me at the hospital after my miscarriage in my previous life.

"Who told you not to listen to me? If only you'd had a child with him earlier to tie him down, do you think your husband would have hit you in the first place?"

It was at that moment that I suddenly understood that the many times I'd compromised my life over and over again had already completely ruined me.

"What… What did you just say?"

Her voice trembled with rage. I simply turned and walked toward the stairwell.

"I said, go ahead and jump if you want to. I'm in a hurry. College applications are already open, and I need to go back and finish mine."

"Suzanne Gibson!" Mom shrieked. "Stop right there! You ungrateful brat! Are you really trying to kill me?"

I stopped walking and turned to look at her. "Mom, you're the one who climbed up here yourself to jump. What's that got to do with me?"

Then, I turned and walked off the top floor without looking back.

When I got home, I locked myself in my study, logged into the college application system, and felt my fingers trembling.

I'd scored 1550 on my SATs, placing me amongst the top 1% in my state.

This time, I wasn't going to enroll in a regular, local college. Instead, I racked my memory and applied for several Privy League colleges that were out of state.

I ticked the boxes for every major at every college. I was desperate to get in, no matter what. As I hit the "submit" button, I felt my nose stinging, and I almost cried.

This was the first time I'd made a choice for my own life.

Just as I exited the system, the study door was slammed wide open with a loud bang.

Mom stood in the doorway, her eyes red and swollen and her hair disheveled. She must have run down from the roof, because her chest was still heaving.

"You—"

She gasped as her gaze fixed on my laptop screen.

"You've already submitted your applications?"

I nodded and turned off the laptop.

"Let me see!" She rushed over at once, trying to get to the laptop from me.

I stepped in and shielded it from her. "I've already submitted them, Mom."

"I said, show it to me!" she said in a shrill voice on the verge of hysteria. When I didn't move, she turned on the computer instead.

The screen lit up, but it required a password to unlock.

Mom glared at me and seethed, "What is the password?"

"I'll never tell you," I said. "The applications are submitted. It can't be changed anymore."

"Where did you apply?" she demanded, her voice shaking. "Did you apply for a college out of state? You did, didn't you!"

I didn't answer her. She took my silence as confirmation.

Suddenly, she let out a deranged scream, snatched my keyboard, and smashed it violently onto the floor.

Broken plastic pieces flew everywhere, and a few keys even popped out and rolled into a corner.

"Suzanne Gibson! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" she wailed, tears streaming down her face. "I told you to apply to a local college! Did you not understand a word I said?

"Did you think I had it easy raising you all by myself? And now, you think you're too good to stay at home with me? Did you really think you could leave now that you're all grown up?

"What are you going to do next, huh? First, you enroll in a college out of state, then you work out of state, then you marry out of state!"