Still sleepy from a night of bad dreams, I rub my eyes and take a deep breath. Tap tap tap on the keyboard. The home page for Wells Fargo Bank springs onto the screen.

I leap off the couch! Running around the room like there’s a spider on me, I stare at the laptop. I know the balance was $858.32, last time I looked, with a savings account of exactly $2,540.00. I was really proud of those twenty-five hundred and forty bucks. But now? I don’t know how I’ll feel if that’s all there is.

“Okay, you can do this. Get your head out of the sand and take a look.” Determined, I march to the computer and pick it up.

I sit down.

I put it on my lap.

Username: dancingqueen11.

Password: Iwillmakeit33.

The screen changes.

“$50,000,858.32,” stares silently back at me.

A scream rips out my lungs. Then another scream. I poke at the screen, tapping out the zeros to wrap my brain around it. Don’t I have to pay taxes? I must! Into Google I type, What is the inheritance tax in California? The answer comes up at once, and I scream again. There are only seven states that collect inheritance tax: Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

I burst into tears, stand up, and throw the computer across the room. It breaks, but I don’t’ care. It was falling apart anyway. Dancing around like a crazy person, I whoop and holler and make strange squeaking noises I’ve never made before.

My phone rings and I catapult myself across the room to answer it. I’m so glad it’s ringing! I have to share this! I have to tell someone what’s going on! Not recognizing the number, I swipe to answer, “Hello?!”

“Rue Calliwell?” a female voice asks.

“Yes?”

“Your mother was a filthy whore!” The phone goes dead.

Staring at it, I stand here, stunned. It’s only 6:18 a.m. It’s way too early to hear your mother’s a whore. Shaken, I dial Jenna’s number. As I wait for her to pick up, I get angrier and angrier. “Come on, Jenna. Pick up!” I dial it again and again until finally she answers in a very groggy voice.

“Hey. What’s up?”

I can practically hear her scratching her nose.

“Jenna, get up. Something just happened and… Oh fuck it! You know what? I’ll tell you about it when you get here. Come over. Now. Because guess what? We’re going shopping.”

She pauses, still half asleep at the time. “The stores aren’t open yet.”

“They are, in New York.”

Silence. Then she gasps, waking up more. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“What do you think I’m saying?”

“That we are flying all the way to New York to go shopping??!!”

“Then yes.”

“I’ll be right there!” She hangs up.

I’m about to throw the phone on the bed so I can pack, when I get a better idea. I go through the recent-call list and assign the name Evil Bitch to the unknown caller who just tried to ruin my morning. “There. Try and surprise me now.” I toss the phone and run to pull out my suitcase, yanking it out of the pile of crap in my closet. Time to dust this baby off.

One thing I’ve always fought against is caring how others perceive me. It’s been too much a part of my life, wanting to blend in and not be judged. The desire to ‘fit in’ is in our evolutionary DNA, one biology teacher told us in high school. It’s still engrained in us from the days when, if we were thrown out of the cave, we’d be dinner. But I hate it.

I don’t want to fit in.

And I really, really don’t want to hear it from ANYONE what they think of my mom, this whole situation, or me.

Alec’s face pops into my mind and I stop in my tracks on the way to the dresser, the soft carpet squishing between my toes.

Talking aloud to myself, I mutter, “The only problem with going to New York is that he’s here. If I stayed here, maybe I’d go out with the brothers again and run into him. You know, by purposeful accident. Maybe I could tell him I don’t care what Sean thinks. That if I’m going to get my heart broken, I want it to be by him.” A shudder passes over me and I shake out my head. “You’re being crazy, Rue. You can’t just lay yourself at a guy’s feet like that. Especially when that probably happens to him all the time.”

Sighing, I pull open my top dresser drawer, and grab my favorite underwear, socks and bras, tossing them into the suitcase from where I stand.

The bank balance jumps in front of my eyes again and a grin spreads on my lips.

I just found out I’m a fucking millionaire.

For real.

Running into the bathroom, I shout, “I just want to be happy. I don’t want to deal with anymore drama!” With growing freedom and excitement racing the blood faster in my veins, I grab my must-haves and run out to throw them in the suitcase, too.

I want to stop listening when people say these words:

You shouldn’t…

You can’t…

You’re too…

What makes them think they have the right to impose their rules or inhibitions on me? It’s not just about the money. Even without it I want to be free. I’ve been carefully holding myself in a glass box afraid of too much shit that doesn’t matter.

We have one life. We get to do what we want.

Within reason. I mean, you don’t go out and kill people just because you forgot your coffee that morning. Or because someone broke your heart.

As long as we don’t purposefully hurt people, we must follow our hearts and dreams and search for joy wherever we can find it.

I want to laugh hard. I want to cry hard. I want to dance!

New York… here I come.