It’s Monday, and I have a 9 a.m. Zoom meeting in twenty minutes. I haven’t showered, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t plan to turn on my camera. I have my coffee, a piece of toast, and I’m already mentally checked out. I sit down and open my email and immediately notice a name among the thirty-plus unopened Monday-morning emails. It’s from a familiar name, William Rogers. It read: I googled you and found that you’re a colle...

The morning is chaotic. Like always. The baby is in her swing, crying. I’m attempting to get her and myself ready for my 12-hour hospital shift and make myself a to-go coffee on four hours of sleep. “Babe! Can you help,” I holler to my husband, who’s enjoying his coffee on the lanai, watching the morning news. “ I have to leave early for a meeting!” “You’re the one who wants to breastfeed at night, babe,” he yells back wi...

My best friend Mari and I bought the concert tickets months ago, despite having no real plan for how we’ll get there. Neither of us has a car, and no one in our country-music-obsessed town shares our taste, or is going. Legal adults or not, it’s a school night, which means asking our parents is off-limits. So, we dust off the classic I’ll be at my bestie’s house studying excuse. Every dollar we had went to the tickets, an...

I’m walking down the street with my best friend Mari. It’s a gorgeous day, and we just had lunch at a riverfront restaurant and are enjoying the downtown shops. We are in a little shop-lined alleyway with cobblestone streets, and we spot one of those old carnival cabinets with a fortune teller inside. Tall, wooden, colorfully painted with a glass front. The mechanical head inside dons a turban, a red jewel pressed in his...

I emerge from the gas station and spot him instantly. I’m trying to be cool as I walk back to my car, side-eyeing this beautiful man perched high in his diesel truck parked in front of mine at the gas pumps. Without warning, his windshield wipers unleash a blast of cold, sudsy fluid. It drenches my shirt and my hair, completely blinding me. I screech and come to a hard stop. Dammit, and I was feeling myself today. I looke...

I’m feeling whiny and bored, amongst other things, and I decide to complain loudly about it over dinner with my roommate. “So let’s go out then.” She shrugs as she puts more butter on her roll. This, in addition to the three large pads she added before her first bite. She might have a perfect body, but the way she eats, she’ll have a triple bypass by twenty-four, mark my words. “I’m fine.” I manage through my curled upper...

It’s wild how broke I am fifteen minutes after my direct deposit hits. Like, my bank account laughs at the scarcity of funds and pole vaults them to my car payment, my credit card, and my student loans. My diet consists of Ramen and envy. Can you get scurvy from eating nothing but Ramen? I can’t remember the last time I had an orange, and my teeth feel suspicious. I have three part-time jobs, not because there aren’t any...

He grabbed the back of my neck and pushed me through the door. I chuckled a little, knowing him well enough to know the game he’s playing, any excuse to show his dominance. My fourth-block teacher is sitting at his desk, typing on his laptop, and looks up as I'm shoved into the room. He stands. “Ah, good afternoon. You must be Dad?” he asks, offering his hand. It’s ignored. “Stepdad.” I huff, shrugging off his grip on me...