They mooed when I walked into class. Someone taped a straw to my locker with “BARN PRINCESS” scrawled across it. I’d scrub my boots in the gas station sink before school, but everyone knew my family ran a dairy farm. To them, I was “cow girl.” I tried to hide it—perfume, silence—but I loved the farm. The rhythm of milking before dawn, calves blinking into life, Dad saying, “When your feet are on soil, your head’s clearer.” Still, I shrank until senior year’s Spirit Day: “Dress as your future self.” I came as me—boots, jeans, Dad’s hat. No costume.
