Try

Chapter 1

IT WAS THE MOUNTAINS THAT DREW ME ACROSS THE COUNTRY. The mountains that stood in the background at all times, watching over the city below. The city that is the same as every other one: tall buildings, expensive real estate and important people milling about. But here, here the trees stand taller. The mountains disappear into the fog. The rain falls each day before the sun can shine.

It has been two hours since I hugged my parent's goodbye. Three hours since I sat across the table from them and ate the last meal we would share until Thanksgiving. Four hours since we discovered just how small freshmen dorms really are.

I'm here. I'm on my own. For ten months I have the right to become someone completely new; someone completely different. I get to discover myself as an individual, no longer Collin and Jane Sumpter's daughter.

There will be no charity dinners or society events. No expensive gowns or tight updos. I will no longer be compared to my father's genius or my mother's looks. I have ten months to be my own person. Here, across the country, my last name holds no weight. I am no longer Clare Sumpter, heiress to Sumpter & Son's Design Inc. I am simply Clare.

Just Clare.

The sun is beginning to set over the Pacific, the waves retreating back into the ocean as everything around me begins to drift into night. I pick up my sneakers and begin my walk back up the beach.

My short blonde hair is falling out of the ponytail, short tendrils escaping the bobby pins meant to hold them off the back of my neck. I slip my shoes on as I reach the natural staircase that will take me back to the city streets. I take a deep breath, readying myself for the workout of a climb, and start running.

It takes twenty minutes to find my way back to campus and another five to remember which building is mine. My thighs are burning and I know, come tomorrow, I will regret the decision to run up the hundred and seventy-three steps.

I step into the room that I will share with another girl for the next year. There are two of everything: two beds, two desks, two dressers, and two closets. Everything is the same as I left it, perfectly decorated by my overbearing mother, but now the other side of the room has begun to fill up.

The door opens behind me and a short girl with dark hair tucked under a gray beanie steps in. Her eyes, heavily lined behind large square glasses, open wide upon seeing me and she drops her bag to the floor.

"Hey!" She smiles, her soft face lighting up. "I'm Audrey."

"Clare," I introduce myself as I take a seat on my bed, crossing my legs as she begins to unpack clothes from the bag she just brought up. Black and gray seems to be her color scheme with a few plain white pieces thrown into the pile she pulls from the bag.

"So where are you from?" She asks as she begins folding the clothing and shoving each item into a dresser drawer.

"Toronto," I reply, not sure what to do with myself. I stand and pretend to be busy reorganizing the work my mother did on my side of the room.

"That's awesome. I've never been further east than Alberta. I grew up about two hours north of here in a small ass town." Audrey continues on, filling any chance of an awkward silence before it can happen. "Though we do have one of the best music festivals in North America, so I shouldn't really complain."

I end up sitting on my bed and watching her unpack, listening to her talk about anything that pops into her mind. She is a stream of consciousness girl, saying whatever comes to mind without thinking much about it. The gray cardigan she's wearing is discarded at some point, thrown onto her unmade bed and I note a few tiny black ink marks on her wrists.