"She seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon. You think you know all there is to know about her immediately upon meeting her, but everything you think you know is wrong. Passion flows through her like a river of blood. She only looked away for a moment, and the mask slipped, and you fell. All your tomorrows start here." -- Neil Gaiman

From the very beginning, music seemed to be in the cards for Ruby Iwasaki.

It was 1984 when Hideki Iwasaki met Edellene Larsen in Japan. Her band, Meanstreak, was opening up for his band, Enterprise, one of the biggest Japanese rock band around in that era. He fell for her immediately, and the two engaged in a whirlwind courtship that resulted in a baby nine months later, a little girl named Minerva. By 1988, when Edellene discovered that she was pregnant again, the Iwasaki clan had relocated to Chicago, Enterprise's home away from home. The Iwasaki's were overjoyed, and Ruby Minako made her way into the world midway through May, the jewel of her family's eye. Two more sons followed, firmly establishing their roots in Chicago.

As a child, Ruby learned how to play piano, though it was not her passion. She was a serious child, the most grown-up of the four Iwasaki children, leading her family to jokingly call her the little adult. She performed well enough in school, but had no taste for academics and did the minimum that was required of her. She preferred to read books or to draw and paint pictures, anything artistic that grabbed her attention. Ruby was happiest on her own, working on a project that took her hours; she could frequently be found bent over a novel or a sketchbook, usually in her room at her desk or seated at the kitchen table. While her sister and brothers excelled in academics, technology, and sports, Ruby was the odd woman out, the black (or as she jokes, psychedelic) sheep of the family.

High school proved this. Ruby had a small close knit group of friends, but endured the reputation of nerdy goth Asian, something that caused some of her peers to bully and tease her, just as they had for years. Ruby did not mind being teased for her clothing or her penchant for nerdiness; what enraged her was the cruel words towards her ethnicity. She could help her clothes, she could not help her almond shaped eyes or lily olive-toned flesh. It made her withdraw all the more, retreat into her group of friends and shun outsiders.

Everything changed the summer of high school graduation. Dressed in her finest attire to go clubbing with her girlfriends, a talent scout by the name of Myra Turlington spotted her on the streets and approached her to offer her a job. Ruby took the card, bemused and thinking it was a joke; even so, the next day she called the number and met with Myra. It was all real. The next thing she knew, she was packing up a small amount of her belongings and moving to Manhattan, NYC. Job after job flowed in: immediately she was photographed for online and print editorials both in New York and around the world, including her father's home country of Japan and her mother's native Norway. Even brief stops for photoshoots were welcomed, getting to see the world no matter how briefly exhilarated the young girl.

It was in New York she met her future husband. Marcus Salazar was tall, dark, and handsome - and he wanted her. He told her that he was 28 and worked in finance, though little did Ruby know, this was a lie. He was 36 years old and a drug dealer but by the time Ruby discovered the truth (by way of sneaking into his wallet after he passed out drunk one night), they were deeply entrenched in a rollercoaster of a relationship full of extreme lows and infrequent highs. When Marcus asked Ruby to marry him, she accepted and the two were married in a fly by night ceremony in City Hall, much to the disappointment and chagrin of Ruby's friends and family. None of them approved of Marcus, and tried to talk Ruby out of marrying him, but she was stubborn and keen to make her own mistakes on her own. Shortly before her 19th birthday, she discovered she was pregnant. While she agonized over what to do, her husband was out cheating behind her back. She had heard whispers of him cheating from her friends but assumed they were just jealous and making up gossip; now she wasn't sure. Ultimately, Ruby decided to get an abortion - with her marriage on the rocks and her modeling career continuing to be on the rise, a baby was simply out of the question. To this day, she does not regret her choice.

With her modeling career on the up and up, her cocaine usage also rose. It wasn't until 2008 that Marcus and Ruby separated; he would not grant her a divorce until 2011. In the meantime, she continued to pose, snort cocaine, and date around, though sex and dating wasn't her end game: Marcus had soured monogamous relationships for her, and she vowed never to commit herself to one person ever again. In 2012, she finally went to rehab for her cocaine addiction and depression. A battery of tests and medications followed, overwhelming her; eventually she left rehab on her own accord and returned to her life. She went back to modeling, but eased off the cocaine; she was exercising and eating better. Better still, her divorce was finalized shortly after, and her two younger brothers opted to make the move from Chicago to NYC as well, living in the same borough as her so they could all be together.

Presently, Ruby still models on occasion, though gigs are few and far in between. She chalks this up to her age and alternative look, though work occasionally still trickles in because of her look. In 2016, she invested most of her savings into an occult/metaphysical shop, Crossroads, and in the summer of 2016 has started working the counter full time. It's not the glamorous life she envisioned for herself, but it's an honest living and she loves being in an environment that caters to her spirituality. She self-medicates her depression and anxiety with copious amounts of marijuana, and she still occasionally abuses cocaine. She plays a mean guitar, just like her mom and dad both, and is trying to put a rock band together. All in all, she's happy with her life. It's as close to perfect as she can get.

"Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could." -- Louise Erdrich