zero.

I'm just a girl.

That's what my brothers used to say anyway. They'd recite it to me like it was straight out the goddamn Bible or something.

You're just a girl Angie, you can't do that.

Then a cigarette would be snatched out my mouth before I could take the second hit or my skirt pulled back down to my hips and I'd be sent to my room and out of the way. Most of what I remember about being a kid is that room— dingy purple walls I'd draw the family trees of my dolls on, Curly's old stained mattress I would flip over every other month, and that banged up dresser that only had one working drawer at the bottom (that's where I put all my diaries and pictures and any magazines I stole from the mart).

My world has always been just me, that room, and my brothers.

Which, back when I was younger, was at no fault of my own. I remember being seven and trailing after Curly, following him around like a lost puppy all across the south side of Tulsa— sneaking into movie houses, bumming it at empty lots and gas stations, waiting outside of parks to steal some kid's bike. Back then, it didn't matter that I was a girl. He used to school me on the in's and outs of the block, which guys to run with, which to run from, and how to shoot the shit with pushers— boys like him, who watched the block for boys like Tim.

A lot of the time he'd make me run back and forth from the house to wherever he decided to hang out for the day and steal Tim's baseball cards or dig in the couches to find change for arcade games. I think he secretly liked that for once he was the big guy on top of things. But Tim will always be the biggest guy. He told us what to do, how to do it, and who to do it with.

His daddy walked out on Momma, Curly's daddy is in jail and writes sometimes, so lucky him, and me, my daddy's gone. Just gone. That's what Momma tells me. I guess that made Tim think he was the big shot around here and could boss us all around any chance he got. Especially me.

You're just a girl, Angie.

And I fucking was with a name like that. Baby Angie, always needing someone to take care of her and drive her places and clean up her messes. Couldn't even get piss drunk and key some asshole ex's car— a greaser girl's right by fifteen— without one of my brothers sniffing around and "handling me". I think they fought about who had to take care of me more than anything.

Curly took more punches than even I can admit were valid (because of your big mouth, Ang, fuck!) and Tim— the fucking asshole dipshit cunt— always stayed awake until I got home. We hated each other, but they always looked out for me. I never appreciated having my messes cleaned up until there wasn't anyone there to help clean 'em. I didn't know anything really until they were both gone.

But what else can you do but take a page out of your big brother's book and get smart and get tough and move the hell on already?

Everyone else does.

So you stop visiting graves and writing letters and taking calls and pick up a book for once in your life and figure, hey this Jane Austen chick ain't so bad. You figure, maybe I could be more, make something of myself.

Which I guess is what I do. I put away the blush and the lipsticks and the magazines (I keep the eyeliner and mascara though because you don't have to become a total boy to be smart) and start wearing my hair in ponytails and switch out my hoops for studs. I still cuss up a storm, but I know words like didactic and perfidious. I even get smart enough to end up landing a full tuition scholarship to Oklahoma State, believe it or not. It's a miracle. Really.

Gramma is always telling me to watch out for miracles, to count my blessings, that I'm an ungrateful bitch just like my Momma and Auntie and that she wishes it were Judith here and not me. It doesn't bother me none because I've been counting ever since I could remember. I have this mental list in the back of my head where I've kept track of every wrong thing a person has done to me, a place where I store that unladylike anger. I don't scream, not at anyone who really deserves it anyways, or cry or throw things or hit anyone or shoot up stores or get arrested for meth or go looking for my daddy in a man or go across the country with a boy who couldn't be more blind to the way I see him.

I don't do any of those things because I am just a girl. And I'm dainty and pretty with soft cheeks and an easy smile when I wanna. I count my blessing every night before going to bed and I burry them into the fucking dirt.