Untitled Novel in Progress - July 1, 2011

       Posting chapter by chapter, because this will be pretty long. I'm challenging myself to write a 50,000 word novel by August 30, which is when school starts. Enjoy!
 

                                         Prologue
        I was born in the city.
        I made my entrance into the world in the backseat of a smelly Lincoln Town Car, and was paraded around the back alleys of Manhatten by a cabbie with a crippling German accent, who was so proud of having delivered a baby that he forgot to keep an eye on his cab. My mother simply got out and walked away.
        I was born in the city, but wherever I go, I am labeled a country girl. Which suits me fine. I prefer being a country girl to being a girl overwhelmed by her own birthplace. 
        New is too big for me, Hiseville was too small, skyscrapers are too intimidating, dusty storefronts and empty streets leave me no place to be invisible.
        There is a small city in Iowa, named Hemaca, that fits me almost perfectly. My friends and enemies there, those who know me best of all, don't call me a country girl. They call me the girl who has nothing. It's not meant as an insult, or an expression of sympathy. They consider nothing to be better than everything else.
        I had a mother, but she walked out of my life.
        I had a sister, but after years of trying to simultaneously hide and fight, I walked out of hers.
        I had a home, but it couldn't keep up with me.
        I had a future, but I left it far behind.
        My story is the only thing that is still mine, and I'm casting even that aside. My past belongs to this notebook now, which I am leaving on the seat of this Amtrak train, and which the attendants will try to return to an owner who will soon be long gone. It's not enough to be the girl who has nothing. I want to be the girl who has nothing, not even a past.
        I hope I never see it again.

-Alex Rush