Blooming in the Mud

They called me a bastard, a filthy whore.

Until I ranked first in the entire city and got into college, all the insults and rumors stopped dead.

My biological parents, who’d sold me away, suddenly showed up, fighting over who got to pay my tuition. My ex-boyfriend, who’d dumped me a month before college applications, came crawling back, begging me to get back together.

But for them, all I felt was hatred.

——

During the first semester of my senior year, a video went viral at our school.