Smoking Diaries #10: Back to High School

Sixteen years old. 1990. The dance theme was “hippie.,” and this guy (who was exceedingly nice) ditched Sarah about ten minutes after this was taken.

by Sarah Hepola

It’s 5:23am, and your narrator has just slept 10 hours, following an intense day of workshops at her old high school as part of an annual literary festival. Highland Park High School is notorious in Texas as a place of affluence and high achievement, but your narrator mostly experienced it as a place where she didn’t belong. Can she change that? Does she want to? Travel along as she confronts old resentments, exceedingly nice moms, students who may or may not be paying attention, and the place that shaped her, for better or worse.

March 2023. This will be interesting.