Mallory Torres is going into her senior year of high school. Middle child in a family of five, with two unloving, alcoholic parents, living in a seven-bedroom house in the centre of Scarsdale, New York. Quiet, reserved, and the smartest girl in her grade. She would win valedictorian if anybody had acknowledged her existence. But it didn't bother her, it never did. She'd been ignored her entire life, and when she wasn't, they wouldn't praise her because of all of her great work. No, they'd bully her, beat her, yell at her. Better to be invisible, she'd always thought. Her escape from her nightmare would be a college acceptance letter to Oxford. Or any other college in any other country. Just not the one where her family was. She'd leave and never look back. Perfect grades, extracurriculars that would make even the toughest Ivy League school send out their acceptance letter in a blink of an eye, and hopefully a scholarship so she wouldn't have to take any more money from her family than she already had. Blasting through life, nothing held her down. Not her parents. Not her siblings. And she didn't have friends. Nothing held her back until the weight of the entire universe fell on her back and she could no longer leave. Ever.