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when she told me about how her drug habit started.
She seemed genuinely ashamed as she told me all about it. “My
parents were always gone. Dad was overseas on business, and Mom was
off to California for weeks at a time. They left me with a Nanny,
but she was probably 150 and went to sleep at 6:30 every night. At
first, I’d sneak out and go dancing with some of my friends—just
dancing. But it didn’t take long for us to start getting approached
by older guys, offering up a hit of this or that. We’d do it to get
a buzz.”
    She continued on while absently messing with
her cuticles. “It only took a couple of weeks to get hooked. I
started stealing jewelry out of my mom’s lingerie drawer and
selling it for cocaine. I stole money from my Dad’s safe. I even
slept with a guy once for drugs. I was a total mess.” A lone tear
rolled down her cheek and stopped at the corner of her mouth. She
violently brushed it away with the back of her hand like she was
brushing away the bad memories of her short life. My heart broke
for her.
    “ I can’t even believe that
was me. In a way, I’m grateful to be here. I didn’t even have to go
through withdrawal. It’s like they took care of all that. They
fixed me or something.” Janice gave me a half smile.
    She made me glad that I never got into
drugs. I enjoyed my average social status and would have done a lot
of things to be more popular, but there were some lines I would
never cross. It pained me that she had to live that life.
    “ Do you miss your parents
or your old life at all?” I asked.
    “ No,” she admitted. I
wasn’t shocked by her answer. “There’s nothing to miss. I didn’t
know my parents, and like I said, I was a total mess. What about
you?”
    “ Yeah, I miss everything
about my life. I miss my parents, my friends, my car, my room, and
even my school. And I miss small things like a hot shower, a real
toilet, a hairbrush, soda, and chips. Oh and chocolate! Man, I miss
chocolate!” My eyes started to water at that point, not over the
chocolate, but over all of it. I wanted it back and it would never
happen. Even if I broke out of the enclosure, I couldn’t go back. I
didn’t own a time machine.
    “ You know, I had nice
things, but at the end of the day that’s not what matters,” she
said, and I knew she was right. “You’re lucky you have things to
miss. You’re lucky you had great parents and good
friends.”
    “ I know, but it makes it
that much harder to be here, Janice,” I sadly admitted.
    Silence passed between us for a few minutes,
as we both thought about our past lives. It was like a bad
chic-flick movie with all the crying and sharing. We just needed to
eat some ice cream and badmouth our old boyfriends. Our fire was
dying down, and I was getting tired so I excused myself, happy to
remove myself from the sob-fest. “Going to call it a night. See ya
in the morning,” I told Janice as I stood to leave.
    Little did I know what the next morning
would actually bring . . .

HELLOOOO COWBOY!
     
    Straight across from our enclosure was
another dome. We could only see one of its enclosures—well, kind
of. From the time I had arrived at the zoo, it had been closed. The
glass was an opaque shade of blue. Bright orange lettering flashed
across the front of the enclosure that said, “New Exhibit Coming
Soon!” When I got up that morning, however, it was open. The glass
was clear, and I could see a dusty, western landscape. There were
two small, wooden buildings with tiny porches, a horse tied to a
post beside a water trough, two cows fenced off toward the back,
some cacti, a few tumble weeds that would blow past every once in a
while, and the hottest guy I’ve ever seen in my life.
    I figured he must be a little older than me,
but no more than 21. He was sitting on the porch of one of the
buildings with his head resting against the wall. He had gorgeous
light brown hair that fell over his eyes. His clothing was typical
of a cowboy: tight