I nearly dialed 911 on the tattooed teenager holding a screaming baby inside an empty 1 AM laundromat. Then his bag tore open, and my stomach sank with utter shame.

That shames me to admit.

After everything I had learned.

After that night in the laundromat.

After I had spent two years telling myself that people are more than the worst thing they look like from the outside.

My first instinct was still to protect what I loved.

And what I loved was inside my house, wearing yellow socks, calling my sofa a mountain.

I stepped continue reading …