'Till Death Do Us Part.

Chapter One: Korae

   I have always known I was unique. More than unique, actually. It's rather strange, I am seventeen and I just graduated high school, but without reason. I know I'll never leave this wretched place. I couldn't bring myself to. It's not that I can't, it's that I won't.

"Korae!"

My dearest mother's voice rang out across the dead plains and interrupted my pointless dreaming. She called my name once more, but it the syllables rushed together into a drunken slur. I knew that before I even reached our shabby single-wide trailer, that the smell of vodka and the stench of pomegranate perfume would give her away. 

My mother was a single-mother of forty-three and a deadbeat alcoholic. Don't get me wrong, she wasn't always that way. At one point in her life she was a lovely house wife. She had met my father twenty years ago, when he was on some lame internship in North Korea. They met there and for some reason, fell in love. I was born three years later, and when I was ten, she was pregnant with my brother. We were a happy little family, with a lot going for us. We moved to the boonies in Texas, thirty-seven miles from the nearest city. My mother wanted to own a horse ranch. I never actually found out why this was, for she hated animals since she was twelve. I had a feeling it had something to do with my father's love of old western movies. 

At six months pregnant, my dad actually fell in love. He left my mom with nothing but a half-finished horse ranch and bills to pay. I was devastated. My father and I had always been close, but he was more of a friend than a dad. He kept in touch through brief phone calls from unknown telephone numbers and postcards without a return address. All he left was a couple words and a hasty signature. 

However, he kept no contact with my mother. It seemed as if overnight she turned from a nurturing caretaker, to an angry tyrant. I often found her drinking late into the night. Soon, all she did was drink. My mother had transformed into a hollowed liquor bank, and it was to no surprise that my brother was a still-born. I began to slowly spend more time away from home, the contact with my father slowly dieing out. The farm became worthless, and I worked full-time when I was sixteen to support my lousy mother. 

Two months ago, I barely finished high school; I ranked next to lowest in my grade. It's not that I wasn't smart, it just didn't matter anymore.

Nothing mattered anymore. I'm not sure what kept me going, but my only happy place was deep in the pastures of  Anton, Texas; where I had a secret.