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“Not bad, Sarah. Not bad at all.”

It’s the morning of Sarah Dunfield’s first day of college and she’s in her bedroom looking at herself in the mirror, trying to decide if she looks like a college student or not. She spent hours yesterday deciding what to wear. Literal hours.

She started with her best clothes, her fancy clothes, but decided it was a little too formal. Like maybe she was trying too hard.

Then she went with black stuff. Black jeans, black shirt, black beanie. She actually liked this look, black’s good on her, but was it the impression she wanted to give on the first day of college? That she’s a goth? That she’s a beatnik poet? That she’s a potential mass shooter? Sarah’s none of those things, so the all-black thing was out.

To be honest, what Sarah really wants is to not stand out in any way. She wants to fit in completely. She wants everyone who sees her walking across campus today to think she’s just another college freshman. Just some nice girl from a nice family in the suburbs, which, to be clear, she most definitely is not.

In the end, she decides to go casual. That’s how college students – real college students – dress, right?

Right?

Sarah has no idea.

But it’s what she’s going with. Faded, slightly holey jeans and a dark green sweatshirt, Sycamore University written across the front in big gray letters. Looking at herself in the mirror, she’s about 60% confident this is the right choice.

She leans in close, checks her makeup one last time. Not too much, not too little.

She pulls back a few steps, checks the whole picture, is more or less satisfied with what she sees.

“Okay, Sarah,” she says to her reflection, “you can do this. You look good, you look the part, and you’re totally going to fool these kids. They’re gonna think you’re just another college student, just one of many.” She throws her backpack over her shoulder, so she really looks the part. “Okay, college girl. Let’s do this.”

She opens her bedroom door, turns toward the living room, and immediately trips over a two-foot high spool of stolen copper wire.

Writhing on the floor, her shin screaming in pain, she yells, “Jesus fucking Christ, Mike!”

In the tiny kitchen of their tiny apartment, her Uncle Mike’s pouring a cup of coffee. “Oh, yeah,” he says disinterestedly. “Watch out for that.”

Now in his 50s, Uncle Mike’s a little gray up top and a little thick in the middle, but he still has that vaguely dangerous look about him that you can’t help but pick up after a lifetime of petty crime.

“The fuck is it?” Sarah says from the floor, rubbing her shin, pulling up her pant leg to see if she’s bleeding. She’s not.

“The fuck’s it look like? Copper wire. That shit’s worth a fortune.”

“When did it show up?”

“Last night. You didn’t hear us bring it in? Good. You’re welcome.”

“Fuckin’ shit, Mike. It’s my first day of college.”

He looks at Sarah blankly. “Okay. What’s that mean to me?”

“It means I’ll be the only freshman on campus who tripped over stolen copper wire this morning.”

Mike shrugs, leaning against the kitchen counter. “You like livin’ here? You like food? Shit like that copper wire is what pays for it all.”

Sarah can’t really argue this point, so she doesn’t try. Yeah, Mike’s a criminal and a bit of an asshole, but he also lets her stay in his apartment, and has since she was 12. Did he raise her? Not really. Sarah kind of raised herself. But at least Mike didn’t kick her out. He could have. Hell, he probably should have a few times, back when Sarah was a drunk, angry, loud, trashy, self-destructive trainwreck. But he didn’t, and because he didn’t, Sarah made it through those years without having to live on the street. So, in the end, if he’s gonna be a bit of dickhead, fine. Sarah can take it.

Picking herself up off the floor and grabbing her backpack, she heads for the door, all pissed that Mike fucked up her first-day-of-college vibes.

“Hey, I got a line on some phones,” Mike calls to her from the kitchen. “You need a new phone?”

“No,” she yells over her shoulder as she goes, slamming the door behind her, storming down the stairs of their apartment building. The phone she has is still pretty new and, yes, it’s from a load Mike stole. Pretty much everything she owns is stolen. The clothes, the makeup, the backpack.

She didn’t used to care about this. Now she does. She’s a college student now. She wants people to think she comes from a college sort of family, even though, clearly, she doesn’t. She’s poor white trash. She just hopes nobody at college can tell.

* * *

Fifty feet from Sarah’s front door is a set of railroad tracks. She cuts down a little dirt path through the blackberry bushes, turns north on the tracks, and starts walking. It’s about a 30-minute walk to Sycamore University, the first ten minutes on the tracks.

There’s this expression, “wrong side of the tracks,” and oh, lord, is it appropriate here. Just on the other side of these tracks is a pretty nice little townhouse complex. On Sarah’s side? Felony Fields.

That’s not the apartment complex’s official name – its official name is Franklin Fields – but everybody knows it as Felony Fields. It’s probably listed that way on the city maps. It’s certainly what the cops call it. They practically live here, showing up day and night, blue lights flashing. It’s been awhile since they’ve come and talked to Sarah’s Uncle Mike. Fingers crossed they don’t show up today. If they find that copper wire before Mike can sell it, his dumb ass is going to jail, and who the fuck knows what’s happening to Sarah. All this time she’s spent cleaning herself up and getting a college scholarship, it might all be for nothing. She still might end up living on the street.

Anyway, Sarah’s been walking these tracks into town her entire life. It’s not dangerous. The train only comes through twice a day and it’s in the middle of the afternoon. If it was at night and they honked their horn the whole time, Sarah would probably have a deep, undying hatred for trains, but no, she actually sort of likes them. If she’s home when one goes by, she usually comes out on the balcony, leans against the railing, and watches. Waves to whoever’s driving, tries to get them to honk their horn. They never do.

The tracks are also kind of fun to walk down. Yeah, you’re looking down most of the time, watching where you step so you don’t trip, but that’s okay. There’s stuff to look at down there. The two rails, of course. The creosote-soaked timbers. A bunch of gravel. Railroad spikes.

Sometimes you’ll see a spike that’s come loose. Kids in the neighborhood collect those. Sarah did, back when she was a kid. She and her friends would pretend they were guns or knives or vampire stakes. One kid would be a vampire and the others would put a railroad spike through their heart. Sarah’s pretty sure you need wooden stakes if you’re trying to kill a real vampire, but they didn’t care. They were just having fun. Also, Sarah’s pretty sure vampires aren’t real.

But if they are real, they sparkle. On this, she’s 100% certain.

After about ten minutes walking down the tracks, Sarah leaves them and starts down sidewalks. This might be her first day of college, but growing up in this town, she’s walked this route a billion times. As half-hour walks go, it’s really not bad. Just the same, she wishes she didn’t have to make it. She wishes she could live on campus. In a dorm. Like a real college freshman.

As she approaches the Sycamore University campus, she starts getting low-key excited. Yeah, she’s been on the campus a bunch growing up, but she’s not over it. She still loves the place. When she gets to that stone wall out front, when she turns that corner and sees the campus open up in front of her, a huge smile spreads across her face. The big grassy mall, the old leafy trees, the pretty buildings, the college students everywhere, walking to the dining hall, heading to their classes, whatever. For Sarah, it’s like entering a different world. Not the world she grew up in, with its tiny apartment, its shitty neighborhood, and a petty criminal who’s the only thing keeping her from sleeping under a bridge. No, that’s the old Sarah Dunfield. The poor white trash Sarah Dunfield. The falling-down-drunk and starting-fights-in-a-Burger-King-parking-lot Sarah Dunfield.

Walking onto this beautiful college campus, she can leave all that behind. She can reinvent herself, become someone different. Someone better. As far as these people know, she’s just another college freshman, heading to class, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, excited for the day ahead.

Today is the first day of the rest of Sarah’s life. Yeah, sure, you can say that about any day, no matter how inconsequential, but today, it feels much more real. It truly feels like a re-birth. The old Sarah’s dead. Long live the new Sarah.