AES: LAW STUDENT RUBY PATRICKS
she graduates high–school with honours, licks her teenage trauma wounds into shiny scars, and vows to leave her deadbeat town and never look back. she moves to england, applies to cambridge, and she’s accepted, sliding easily into her new role. no more gingham dresses and ice popsicles and mingling with the wrong type; now it’s knit sweaters and rainy days and boys with glasses who want to kiss her cheek. she falls asleep with a list of names on her tongue – zeke patricks, rockatansky, klassen, people she promises to herself she’ll see behind bars one day for what they did to her – and passes tests on bitterness alone, motivated by a burning desire for revenge. she learns how not to flinch when discussing sexual assault cases in class, pretends to not have an uncanny knowledge of incest laws, and when her easygoing roommate invites her on a girls’ night, she surprises herself with her immediate ‘yes’. even more astonishing is that she means it.