By the time I turned nineteen, I’d already...

By the time I turned nineteen, I’d already defaulted on life. I left my dorm room and stained microwave behind for a man ten years my senior who quickly left me in a hotel room he hadn’t paid for. I rode a Greyhound bus ten hours across the state, back to the town where I’d grown up, back to my parents’ basement. They made me promise to stay quiet during their dinner parties. That month I smelled like potpourri and cigarette smoke, woke up with cotton mouth from the cheap whiskey I kept in my nightstand drawer. It wasn’t what I wanted. I felt like versions of my life were getting stuck at the back of couch cushions. I emailed friends, all away at college, and begged for any leads. Only one wrote back, gave me her boyfriend’s brother’s number. He was putting together a crew for a film shooting three hours south.When I called, he asked how tall I was, how I liked my coffee, and when I could start. I told him, 5’7”, black, and tomorrow. He said fine and hung up without saying goodbye. The next morning, I wrote a note on a post-it, stuck it to the refrigerator between a grocery list and a baby photo of me in a bonnet, and hopped into his Volvo.

ISSUE #60: Kelsey Ford, Jocelyn Spaar, Single Ben | Storychord

So excited (excited, with a side of nerves) to be published in this issue of Storychord, alongside Jocelyn and John.