“When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” ~Maya Angelou In June 2011, I got a Facebook friend request from a guy I vaguely knew from college. We’d never dated, never even been close, but I knew him by reputation. Charming. Vain. The kind of guy who always had someone. He’d just been hired to teach at my school, where I was about to start my fifth year as a counselor. He framed the request as wanting to connect as colleagues, so I accepted. When school started […]

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” ~George Santayana I was gone about two hours. I’d gone to see my stepbrother, who lived nearby. My girlfriend didn’t want to come, so I told her to rest, and I’d be back soon. When I got back to my father’s property, where we lived in the camper we’d bought together, it was gone. So was she. She’d packed my clothes into a bag and left them on my father’s porch on her way out. That told me everything I needed to […]