Mabel Hart was seventeen years old when she understood that school was not a place of learning but a market. A small market of flesh, faces, bodies, voices, family names, teeth, legs, skin, hair, confidence, money, and the lie that all of it happened naturally. Like weather. As if you woke up beautiful or ugly the way you woke up to sun or rain. As if nobody were to blame. As if life were simply built that way and everyone else had no choice but to accept it.