by Timmy Reed
“Listen, anyone can be interesting to almost anyone else at any time, Miles. Everyone. Even boring people with boring lives. Every single body has something going on inside it. It all depends on what parts you choose to reveal.”
I told him I guessed he was right.
“He is,” Diamontay whispered in a sad little voice. “Pretty smart for a dummy . . .”
She broke out laughing as tears rolled down her face and we laughed along with her and the car felt better inside, buzzing almost, and I think we each felt a little better inside for a while too.
But on the other hand, high school starts next week and my personal essay is due. Despite all of Mister Reese's good advice and everything else that has happened this summer, I can't figure out why anyone in their right mind should want to read fifteen hundred words about me.
acknowledgments
The author would like to thank his friends, family, Madison Smartt Bell, Carabella Sands, Mississippi John Hurt, as well as all of the wonderful neighborhoods and communities here in Baltimore, past and present, that have informed this book.
About the Author
Author photograph © Tim Ford
timmy reed is a writer, teacher, and native of Baltimore, Maryland. He received his M.F.A. from the University of Baltimore. Reed is the author of the books IRL, Miraculous Fauna, and The Ghosts That Surrounded Them. His short fiction has been featured in the Wigleaf Top 50 on multiple occasions and has appeared in Necessary Fiction and the Atticus Review, among other publications. In 2015, he won the Baker Artist Awards Semmes G. Walsh Award. He teaches English at Stevenson University and Community College of Baltimore County and English as a Second Language at Morgan State University.