Edie Gassion

The Ultimate College Admissions Essay Edie Gassion

Street kid. On the run. Tough. Whip smart redhead. Hurt. Catches a lucky break. Survives . . . Monique Reilly couldn't stay on the streets, not after her boyfriend sold her to a pimp. She couldn't go home after her mom's boyfriend did what he did while her mom heard and pretended not to hear. So she was on the run, in play. Stay out? Come in? Can't stay out. But is it safe to come in?She knew what she was running from, but she couldn't know what she was getting into. Be real careful, in the real world, when the stakes are for real. Don't trust anybody. Sometimes the girl's locked in. Sometimes the world's locked out. Sometimes, both at the same time. Don't get trapped. But that happens, of course. When it does, let it happen and tough it out . . . In contemporary Oregon, downtown Portland, an existence on the streets, a gritty reality that has to end, a life expectancy of weeks or months, not years, no matter the meth and no matter the tricks and no matter the grifting. It has to end. It's just a matter of how. A noir coming of age, a dystopian rite of passage. Metamorphosis, the death of one life and a resurrection in a new one, all in three days. Monique got lucky. Real lucky.