During this worst of times, Alison Hayes must discover her strength and determination and a powerful drive to do something better.
When Alison Hayes walks into her storm-darkened trailer the afternoon of her 16th birthday, she has no idea it will be the beginning of a year like no other: Her mother loses her job again, the most stable man they've ever had in their lives is looking for the nearest exit, and her best friend is dating the prom queen. She can't remember the last time anything good had happened to her. If the rails still passed through town, she would definitely be on the wrong side, always looking across the tracks to everyone else who has it so much better than she.
Dirt. Trash. The words have followed her through her life in her tattered, rust-stained jeans. She longs to understand her mother-lost and broken, driven by her addictions and by her losses-and to reconcile that reality with the memory of who her mother was before. In the chaos of their one-acre in the world, Alison strives for sanity, forging a path through the wreckage into the light.
She is alone and must learn to stand alone, or she will be swept by the same undercurrents of self-defeat that took her mother so many years ago.