In registration that afternoon, Dusty sat near the window, letting the afternoon sun warm her skin. She waited for her name, ready to raise her arm at the appropriate moment.

Miss Steele, their form tutor, was in her late fifties, with white hair and sharp eyes. "Dusty-Rose Black," she called. No matter how many times Dusty had asked for her name to be shortened, Miss Steele always insisted on reading it out in its entirety. Dusty lifted her hand and nodded, but Miss Steele wasn't looking across at her; she was focused on the register she held in her hand.

"Oh, Miss Black, there's a note that you need to go and see Ms. Quinn after school about your math paper." Dusty's eyes widened in shock. What could be wrong with her paper?

"Ooh, private time with Ms. Sexy herself ," Cora leaned across and whispered.

"I'm probably in trouble." Dusty sighed.

"You better hope so," Cora teased, winking at her friend.

****

As the bell screamed to signal the start of the weekend, Dusty was unable to join the jubilant hordes that were fleeing the school grounds, eager to enjoy two days off. Instead, she wandered back to the classroom where Ms. Quinn taught math, unsure what she wanted to see her about.

Maybe she was going to confront her over her outburst about her father. Dusty steeled herself for that possibility, prepared to tell Ms. Quinn to mind her own business and stay out of hers. She had no right to pry into her family situation. She was eighteen now, an adult herself.

She pushed open the door to the classroom and spotted Ms. Quinn sitting behind her desk, bent over some papers. Dusty cleared her throat, and she looked up at her. "You wanted to see me?" she asked.

"Yes, I did. Thanks for coming." Ms. Quinn flashed a smile that made Dusty's knees go weak. She steadied herself as she gestured towards the empty desks before her. "Take a seat," she instructed.
Dusty obliged and settled herself in one of the desks in the front row. "I wanted to talk to you about the test paper you did this morning," Ms. Quinn said, producing the paper in question and handing it to Dusty.

In the top left-hand corner in neat red pen was the letter C accompanied by a plus symbol. "Isn't a C plus okay?" Dusty asked.

"C plus is great," Ms. Quinn admitted. "Most students in this class would be thrilled with a C plus." She looked over at Dusty, studying her.

"I sense a but coming," Dusty admitted.

"But, you're not most students. You almost got an A."

"Almost an A?" Dusty echoed.

"Your work is all accurate. In fact, you even wrote the correct answers to all the problems. Then you crossed them out and changed them a few numbers off."

"I got the answers wrong, big deal." Dusty tried to feign indifference. She bit her lip and looked out of the window, envious of the students who were heading back to their nice houses and their complete families.

"The point I'm making is that I think you got the answers wrong deliberately," Ms. Quinn suggested, her tone soft and nonconfrontational.

"So what? You think I'm doing the opposite of cheating? Like failing on purpose?" Dusty said, trying to make the suggestion sound preposterous. "Why would anyone do that?" She said.

"You tell me," Ms. Quinn asked, still keeping her same, gentle tone.

"I can't tell you because that's not what's happening. I got my answers wrong; it happens. I'm not that good at math."

"But I think you are. In fact, I think you're very good at math."

"I'm not." Dusty shook her head and, feeling uncomfortable beneath Ms. Quinn scrutiny, folded her arms protectively across her chest.

"I think that you hide how smart you actually are and pretend to be some dumb blonde cheerleader just because you want to fit in." Ms. Quinn stood and came to lean against her desk, shortening the distance between them.

"Are you insulting me?" Dusty hugged herself tighter. "Because it sounded like you called me a dumb blonde."

"I said you're pretending to be a dumb blonde," Ms. Quinn corrected her.

"Maybe I'm just dumb," Dusty protested, getting agitated.

"Or maybe you pretend to be because you want to fit in. But as someone older and hopefully wiser, let me tell you that fitting in isn't as important as you think it is. There's more to life than being popular."

"Not in high school there isn't," Dusty told her. "Here, you're either rich or popular. If you aren't one of those, you're nothing."

"That's not true."

"It is true. You've just forgotten because it's been so long since you were sitting here as a student." Dusty was now yelling at her math teacher, but she didn't care. She wasn't about to let Ms. Quinn catch her in a lie and uncover the truth about her life beyond West High.

She'd worked too hard to become head cheerleader; she wasn't about to let some overly observant teacher ruin everything for her.

"Dusty, you can trust me. Tell me why you're hiding your intelligence," Ms. Quinn pleaded with her. "You're risking your entire future by messing up your grades in your senior year. I wish you could see the bigger picture." Dusty felt frozen beneath Ms. Quinn' gaze. She knew the bigger picture; she was subjected to it each and every day.

Her life would amount to nothing. She wouldn't be allowed to go to college because her mother would need her to get a job straight out of high school to help earn the family some much-needed money. Dusty's childhood dreams of studying math at an Ivy League college had died with her father.

Here, in high school, these would be the best days of her life. She was desperate to make the most of them, to be someone others envied while she could be, for too soon she'd be in the real world and nothing more than trailer trash.

"There are worse things than being labeled a brain," Ms. Quinn continued.

"Trust me, Ms. Quinn," Dusty began, her voice cold. "I'm aware of just how cruel and wicked this world can be, and in relation to such things, name calling is most certainly nothing at all."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Ms. Quinn asked.

"Talk about what?" Dusty questioned, but she could feel her hard exterior beginning to chip. Her true self and all the baggage she struggled beneath was threatening to break through. It didn't help that the incident at the 7-Eleven still burned freshly in her mind.

"Whatever it is that makes you so angry."

"I'm so angry?" Dusty retorted, knowing full well that she was. Each day she had to control the rage building up inside her. She was angry that her father was dead, she was angry that her family had lost everything, she was angry that everyone else's life seemed so happy and carefree when all hers ever seemed to be was hard.
She missed her old life, in her huge house where she'd had her own bedroom, which even had its own bathroom.

If she closed her eyes, she could still remember her old room. The four-poster princess bed in the center of the room, covered in pale green and pink bed sheets. Everything had matched, from the curtains to the bed linen, even the wallpaper and carpets. She'd had a dressing table and a four-door wardrobe, all in solid oak.

Just before the shooting, her father had installed a chalkboard wall for her. Dusty would sit and write music or do advanced mathematics for fun. On the wall, she'd stick up pictures of her friends from school and scribble down messages and dreams.

It didn't match the feminine tone of the rest of the bedroom, but Dusty felt like it was the strongest reflection of the woman she was becoming, and by installing it, her father showed that he recognized that in her. While her mother wanted Dusty to be a prim and proper lady, her father noticed the books she was reading and the music she was listening to, and he encouraged her to be her own person.

He'd even bought her a record player so she could sit and listen to some of her favorite music on vinyl discs. Her favourite was the album Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. But all those things had been sold.

Dusty kept a fraction of the contents of her wardrobe and the record player, but in time, she had to sell those too, to help pay the ever-mounting bills that seemed endless. Dusty wanted to go back to her old bedroom. To put on one of her favorite records and look out at the garden. She loved to sit by the window and watch the trees in the backyard sway in the breeze. Everything was so peaceful there; it was sanctuary from the craziness of the world. But now she had nowhere that was her own, no place she could run and hide to when she needed solace.

Her innocence, her privacy, and her dreams had all been taken from her by the pulling of a trigger. It shocked her to think how one bullet could do so much damage, not just to the body it landed in but to all those connected to the person who fell.

"I'm angry because life isn't fair," Dusty admitted to Ms. Quinn, casting her eyes down to the desk, not wanting to meet her gaze.

"I'm sure a lot of people your age think life isn't fair," Ms. Quinn told her.

"But most people didn't see their dad get shot in front of them when they were fourteen," Dusty admitted the truth, feeling the warmth of tears running down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry." Ms. Quinn' mouth fell open in shock. "I...I had no idea. I assumed you were just trying to fit in."

"I am." Dusty's lips began to quiver. She tried to stay in control, not wanting to cry here in her math classroom. But she was powerless against the wave of emotion that engulfed her. She lifted her hands to her eyes and began to weep.

Ms. Quinn was by her side, wrapping comforting arms around her. Dusty fell against her strong shoulders, grateful of the support. Ms. Quinn held her as she wept and shuddered, waiting for her sobs to die down to just soft muffles.

"I'm sorry." Dusty pulled away from Ms. Quinn , wiping at her eyes.

"It's okay." Ms. Quinn remained close.

"Your shirt is all wet," Dusty noticed.

"It's okay." Ms. Quinn shrugged. "It's you I'm worried about."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to break down on you like that. I just, I don't know. I put so much energy into pretending it didn't happen."

"Do your friends know what happened to your dad?"

"No." Dusty shook her head and then laughed.
"Doesn't really say much about our friendship, does it?"

"Why don't you tell them?"

"Because I want to fit in. I don't want to be the girl everyone pities."

"I don't think they'd pity you; they'd just feel for you," Ms. Quinn said.

"No, they'd pity me." Dusty sighed. "They'd pity me because money talks, even here in high school. They say we live in a world committed to free speech, but the truth is that whoever has the most money gets to shout the loudest. If people knew the truth, about my family and me they wouldn't respect me anymore. I'd become nobody to them."

Ms. Quinn pulled a chair up so she could sit beside Dusty. Dusty noticed how good she smelt, like Vanilla and Rose. Ms. Quinn leaned up next to her and placed a comforting hand over her own.

Her skin was so soft. Ms. Quinn looked deep into Dusty eyes, and Dusty felt her heart flutter. "Do you want to talk about what happened with your dad?" Her voice was so soft yet so deep at the same time.

Dusty felt the hair on the back of her neck bristle in titillation. She knew she had to calm her impulses, and so she decided to tell her about her father and what happened four years ago, knowing Ms. Quinn was the first person within West High who would have heard the truth.

"Growing up, we had everything," she began. "We used to vacation all over the world and go skiing in the winter. Our family always seemed to have money. My dad was always so generous too, constantly buying my brother and me gifts. Once, he came home with a brand new bike for us both, which he'd bought on a whim. He was great like that, always making us feel special.

"I went to Gormell, a private school. You've probably heard of it. My brother and I both went there, and we had an amazing education. They nurtured us, and at fourteen, I was happily solving complex calculus problems."

"Impressive." Ms. Quinn nodded. "I used to love math," Dusty admitted. "It was my favorite subject. That and music. I find comfort in the structure of it."

"Me too." Ms. Quinn smiled. "So there I was, doing great at Gormell. There was talk about me one day going to Princeton, just like my dad. I played the violin, I had friends, life was pretty amazing. Looking back, I see that it was beyond amazing, it was wonderful, perfect even. I had everything, and I didn't even realize it."

"And then." Dusty paused, not sure she could continue. She felt Ms. Quinn squeeze her hand in reassurance. "Ms. Quinn," she began to try to vocalize how she felt.

"Call me Valentine ," she suggested, and Dusty blushed. Knowing her name made her seem less like a teacher and more like a normal girl. "Valentine ... then my dad walked into the wrong 7-Eleven to get me a soda, some asshole put a bullet through his brain, and destroyed my entire world." Dusty tried to sound flippant but shuddered as she spoke.

"That's terrible," Valentine breathed beside her. "The worst part was that I was there. I still have nightmares about it, how his body dropped to the floor, and I knew he was dead, gone forever." Dusty was silent, feeling emotionally exhausted from reliving the most painful moment of her young life.

"Did they ever find the guy who did it?" Valentine asked.

"Yeah." Dusty nodded. "Not that I care. Finding the guy didn't change anything. It didn't suddenly give me closure."

"So what happened after he died? Why did you leave Gormell?" Valentine asked.

"After my dad died, like after we'd been through the funeral and all that other horrible stuff, the really bad things started to happen. My mom didn't really discuss it with me at the time. I guess I was too young to fully understand it, but she discovered that we had no money. In fact, my dad had been in a lot of debt. A real lot. So much so that we were forced to sell our home and everything in it, and even then we hadn't paid everything off."

"That must have been difficult to come to terms with," Valentine sympathized.

"It was like it wasn't just my dad who was gone, it was everything that had ever been connected to him. His car, our house, it was like every trace of our life with him was suddenly taken away. There was nothing to hold on to." Dusty rubbed her forehead wearily with her free hand. She'd never spoken to anyone about how she felt in those turbulent months after her father's death, not even her mother.

She'd locked up her feelings, determined to be strong for her mom. "And so we had nothing. We were forced to move into a trailer," Dusty admitted shamefully.

"A lot of great people come from humble beginnings." Valentine tried to alleviate Dusty apprehension over where she lived.

"I had to join this school, and I guess it sort of helped to deal with everything if I forgot who I was and invented a new version of myself. I stopped playing violin, stopped working hard in school, and became this other person."

"So no one here knows you used to go to Gormell?"

"Nope, not a clue," Dusty clarified. "Because if they knew, I'd stop being Dusty Black the cheerleader and become Dusty- Rose Black the outcast. And I don't want that."

"I appreciate how desperately you want to fit in," Valentine told her. "You've been through something truly awful, but I don't think throwing away your future is the best solution."

"I'm not throwing anything away," Dusty argued. "My future is already planned out for me. After high school ends, I'll have to get a job to help my mom pay the bills. College is just one of the dreams that died along with my dad."

"Have you talked to your mom about it?"

"No, I don't talk to her about anything like that. She just gets upset."

"I'm sure your mom wouldn't want you to forsake your future for her. You should talk to her about it."

"It's too late now anyway," Dusty said, her voice small.

"How is it?"

"I've screwed up my grades for the past four years. There's no decent college that would take me now."

"What if I could help you get into college? Like a decent college, like Princeton?" Valentine suggested.

"Like Princeton?" Dusty regarded her with suspicion. "How could you help with that?"

"I went there myself. And if you're as gifted with math as I think you are, then I reckon we could make a case for you to apply for a scholarship under extenuating circumstances," Valentine told her, speaking quickly as her enthusiasm grew.

"I don't know," Dusty sounded doubtful.

"Dusty, if your dad could see you now, what would he think? Would he think you were risking your future happiness?" Dusty couldn't speak; she'd always tried to push out of her mind how her father would judge her current situation. She hated the thought that she'd somehow lost her way and let him down. Growing up, she'd only ever wanted to make her parents proud.

"Can you help me?" she asked Valentine , her eyes welling up with fresh tears.

"Yes." Valentine smiled, revealing perfect teeth. "Of course."

****

Daylight was fading as Dusty walked alongside Valentine out of the school and out towards the parking lot. Only a handful of cars remained, including Valentine silver Prius. "Can I give you a lift home?" she offered, casting her a friendly smile.

"I don't know." Dusty paused behind her.

"You got a better offer?" Valentine joked.

"Not really," Dusty admitted.

"Then get in." Valentine gestured towards her car, and Dusty climbed into the passenger side before she had the opportunity to decide against it.

"I can't believe you drive a Prius," she declared as Valentine turned on the engine. "What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing if you're, like, forty." Dusty laughed.

"I can assure you I'm not forty," Valentine commented as she drove out of the parking lot and turned left.

"So how old are you?" Dusty asked carefully, aware that in asking, they were straying beyond the boundaries of the teacher-student relationship, but she didn't care. Valentine made her feel comfortable and accepted her true self, which was more than she could say for most people.

Most importantly, she'd listened to her, Valentine was the first person to have done so since her father died, and that meant something to her. "Twenty-five," Valentine answered.

"Oh." Dusty did the math in her head. She was only seven years older than she was. It seemed bizarre to think that less than a decade ago, she'd been a student, and now she was the teacher.

"Oh?" Valentine asked her response.

"Nothing, it's just, not that old."

"Are you disappointed I'm not older?" Valentine asked.

"No, not at all." Dusty turned on Valentine's car stereo, and the dulcet tones of Joni Mitchell filled the vehicle.

"You don't have to listen to that." Valentine moved her hand to switch it off, but Dusty batted her away. "You like Joni Mitchell?" Dusty reaction seemed to surprise her. "I thought kids your age like music that sounds like a washing machine on fast cycle."

"Okay, now you sound old." Dusty giggled. "But yeah, I like Joni Mitchell. Not as much as Janis Joplin, but I like her."

"You're into old