The Protector (Barrett Boys #3) - Jordan Ford Page 0,15
into a snicker as I fold the cheap cotton shirt and add it to my pile. Mom would be freaking horrified.
I’m actually kind of triumphant to have bought several of my T-shirts from Wal-Mart. There was a large range with a bunch of cute designs, and I figured why not? I could be a T-shirt and ripped jeans girl. Bring it on!
So far, everything I’ve bought online has actually fit me pretty well, bar one pair of jeans that I’ve already passed on to Loretta’s daughter.
Running my fingers over the soft denim, I wonder what it’ll feel like to walk the streets wearing whatever I want. To turn a corner and not be confronted with a flashing camera and another false headline. I don’t know how the media gets away with just making stuff up. It drives me crazy. I never go out of my way to read stuff, but occasionally I see something pop up or a headline catches my eye.
I was thirteen years old when one gossip website accused me of packing on the pounds. “Is it puppy fat or just plain gluttony? Or is poor little Indigo comfort eating after her father loses yet another girlfriend?”
I didn’t want the story to affect me, but it did. I shouldn’t have read it, but the thing was like a car crash—I couldn’t not look.
Why did they have to bring me into it? I don’t have anything to do with my father’s love life!
One of the kids in my prep school read it and laughed about it in front of the entire class. That was the same week I found out that the girl who I thought was my best friend was really only sticking around because she thought my father would cast her as an extra in a movie he was working on. He didn’t, so she stopped sitting with me during lunch. And in English. Oh yeah, and if memory serves me correctly, she convinced all the other girls in our grade that I was a stuck-up bitch who didn’t care about any of them.
That was a lonely year.
I stayed off the internet and buried myself in books for months after that. I took one with me everywhere I went so I could hide my face in it when I needed to. Plus, they were a good escape. In a book, I could become the character going off on an adventure. I read everything from Pride and Prejudice to Pillars of the Earth. But my favorites were always the adventure novels. The ones where the characters were independent and free, fighting for a just cause with no one holding them back or telling them what to do all the time.
In my mind, I’ve lived in every era of history. I’ve experienced rainforests and deserts, mountain passes and endless plains. I’ve solved mysteries, fallen in love, caught the bad guys, and been a kickass fighter.
Books are a solace I can’t live without. They’ve saved me more times than I can count.
But I don’t want to rely on them anymore.
It’s time to stop living in fantasyland and join the real world. This move to college is my chance to do that. My chance to become someone new without all the pressure of my name and family. I want to walk the grounds of Mont U… just one of the crowd. The girl without status and wealth. The girl who loves learning about science. I want to make friends who genuinely like me for me; not because of who I’m related to, but because I just happen to be a nice person who’s fun to be around.
My lips pull into a doubtful frown.
Am I fun to be around?
I seriously have no idea.
Oh man, I hope I can pull this off. I hope the press don’t get wind of this stupid stalker letter and ruin it for me.
“What are you doing?” Ruby’s curt voice makes me glance up.
I shift my body so she can’t see the piles of clothes on my bed. If she gets a closer look, she’ll see labels and then rag on me for dressing like a pauper. She’ll then want to know why, and she’ll probably be horrified by my reasoning.
“You want to be anonymous? Why!”
She thrives on fame, goes out of her way to get into the headlines. Every new follower or subscriber is like another point to elevate her self-worth.