Luke Hartwick

They told me I had a hernia at first.

I looked up and found a picture of myself from five years ago pinned to a Missing Persons board.

Being the new kid in school sucks. I thought by now I would have been used to it, because of all the moving my family has done over the years. But I guess there is no getting used to the stares and the condescending curiosities. Sometimes I wonder if they know my secret. Can they tell just by looking at me?

They told us we were special.

My girlfriend of five years broke up with me one day because she said she couldn’t deal with how much of a slob I was.

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately,” he said one day when we were walking home from the bus stop. “About the ánt’įįhnii.”

“Payback’s a bitch,” Paul said.

For a while all I did was field calls, like the other operators. But then I started realizing that some of these people were calling from only a few blocks away from me.

Illegal immigrants from Mexico call me a Coyote. Or at least they used to.

Now, when I think back to the excuses my parents used to make, I feel like an idiot.

He finally got fed up with everything about a month ago.

I used to think that I was a real-life hero, come to help humanity.