I was a total bad girl growing up.

Growing up, I never felt like the pretty girl.

Growing up, I wanted desperately to please, to be a good girl.

Growing up she had become used to allowing men the ability to curve themselves into question marks around her and hold her desperately as if she were the answer. She had become afraid to admit that she is not.

The Girl was gone, buried in the past. She never wanted to hear that name again. She was a woman for better for worse. Whatever the future might bring she could face it as a woman, Ned Ridley's woman.

My family didn't have any money growing up. I'm just a girl from the ghetto; from Indio, California.