Audiobook Excerpt narrated by Lori Prince

I'm the Girl |

Audiobook excerpt narrated by Lori Prince.

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Prince, Lori: ... long, perfect legs reaching for the smooth plane of her perfect stomach, extending toward the soft swell of her perfect breasts. Her perfect blonde curls spill over her shoulders, hailing the peaches and cream complexion of her perfect face. Her pretty little lips form a perfect pink, "O." Oh, the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life. It's me. I'm the girl.

He calls me a stupid little cunt as I leave, says I have more beauty than brains. What he was offering, he tells me, was more than I was worth. I leave them all behind, the photos carefully stowed in my messenger bag. Aspera is beyond the city and I'll have to ride back through my neighborhood to get to it. My bike's tires hum against the road as the sun continues its slow rise up the horizon, stirring this sliver of world awake, the air cool and damp with last night's rain.

I pass houses that could all be my house, the same missing shingles on the same weathered roofs, the same flaking blue siding, the same weeks' worth of trash at the curb. Tyler will be up by now glancing at my closed bedroom door, believing I'm inside before leaving for work. He hasn't spoken to me since last night when he found out what I fucked up, what I did to him, in the name of myself. Our mother always told me, and only me, "It's more important to know who you are than who you think you're meant to be." As though she could see this betrayal taking root. But if she did, it's only because she planted the seed. So, whose is it in the end? Hers or mine?

If my mother thought Aspera was the one place in this world, I didn't belong, it was only because she didn't imagine me in that storm room, threadbare carpet digging into my knees while the man above me fumbled with his fly. I pumped my legs harder and before long, Ketchum him is behind me, giving way for the lush sun shimmered green lining its either side. When I finally turn onto the road leading to the resort, a car comes tearing down out of nowhere and seems to have me in its sites. I swerve, in the last second moment, I realize it won't, that it'll run me over if I don't, and it clips the back end of my bike. The violence of it untethers me and the brutal impact of my return to earth rattles my skull, forcing the breath from my lungs and a different kind of untethering. I turned my face to the road, the car is coming back.

I cough, choking my way to consciousness, my lips against gravel, the taste of metal in my mouth. I press my hands into the dirt, gasping as my left arm gives out under my weight. There's something wrong with it. The agony of that discovery washes over me before I try again, letting my right take on the burden, forcing myself to my feet. Once I'm standing, I clench my jaw, stealing myself against the involuntary sway of my body. My bike is gone, my bag road-killed at the shoulder, $4,000 worth of photographs of me crumpled inside. There are faint impressions of footsteps where I lay, circling me, blood on me where skin and road connected. I try to get a hold of myself, breathing slowly in through my nose and out my mouth, clutching my left arm to my chest, my head pounding. I limp my way forward.

Aspera is far, but it's closer now than home. But even if I was hurt bad enough, I should turn myself around, I wouldn't. I couldn't. This is the closest I've ever come Aspera, a 12,000 acre members only resort hidden away in the mountains. What God couldn't put a price on, all that wild beauty ever reaching for the limitless blue sky, its owners, Matthew and Cleo Hayes, surely would. There are always whispers about the latest rich and famous hiding there to escape themselves. And when my mother worked housekeeping, everyone would ask me for her dirt. I'd beg any little detail, but she wouldn't talk about the place, at least not in any way I wanted to hear.

This audio excerpt is provided by Macmillan Audio.