Trapped in a lackluster town with her verbally abusive mother, seventeen-year-old Lacey Robinson knows one thing for certain: The only antidote to all the problems she and her brother face is getting as far away as possible from their inept home life. When an admissions project from Lacey's out-of-state dream college comes along, she knows it's the ticket out she's been hungering after. After all, Lacey knows there's nothing that can't be solved by putting miles between her and her problems.
All that's left to do now is create a masterpiece, get accepted, and voila!-a new life awaits.
But as life at home grows increasingly difficult, Lacey's way out doesn't seem quite so easy anymore. When she finds a confidant in co-worker Noah Kennedy-who's struggling in the wake of his father's recent suicide-she begins to second-guess if she can truly outrun her scars. As her plan begins to splinter, Lacey is faced with a life-altering ultimatum: keep failing to outrun her scars and end up just like her mother, or finally deal with the trauma she's ignored her whole life.
Can Lacey confront and overcome her past, or will it become her?
Raw, gritty, and achingly real, "A Different Escape" tells the story of a teen's struggle to embrace life's biggest hurdles.
