Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 318

 

Here are a couple of edits from a book I recently read, "Somebody's Daughter: A Memoir," by Ashley Ford.

One time a boy told me my mother was ugly, and I fought him so hard I ended up with a reputation. Ashley Ford will fight boys. I liked that. Fights were a big deal because they could get you kicked out of school, but they weren’t a big deal between students. You could beat somebody’s ass on Monday and be swapping notes on Tuesday. In most instances, whatever the problem had been between the two of you, the fight settled it.

I’d told myself before I got there, that I would refer to him as “Dad” because I was not a child. I was a grown woman, and I was pretty sure grown women didn’t call their fathers “Daddy.” But in that moment, I felt like someone’s little girl. And I’d been waiting a long time to feel like somebody’s daughter.