They Call Her Dirty Sally (Silver Bell Legends)

by Amy Matayo

No one celebrates the fallen and discarded because no one wants to admit it could happen to them. But we’re all just one misstep away from living an upside-down life while the rest of the world points out all the ways we deserve it.

Sleeping with a boy doesn’t make them love you more. It makes them stop talking to you, at least at school where other people can see. At night though…at night, those same boys want to be friends again. At night you’re good enough. At night no one else is around to say otherwise.

Sleeping with Jack was the worst decision she’d ever made. At fifteen, it was barely a decision at all. It was the desire to be loved, but no one tells you love and sex aren’t the same thing.

It’s bittersweet the moment you’re faced with saying goodbye to a life you thought you hated once you realize you never hated it at all. Sally suddenly knew how much she loved her father and their tiny life together, even if everyone else hated them. Her papa was a constant, a touchstone to normalcy. She had a father, after all. Not every child does. He was hers, and she was his, the only father she’d known for fifteen years. The one she wanted for the

How many of us treat the “other woman” badly—not because the other woman did anything inherently bad to us—but because we’re friends with the person she wronged. Shouldn’t a good friend hate by default? How many of us justify a man making cat calls at a woman’s backside—not because we’re okay with his behavior—but because we’re friends with the guy, and it was “just harmless fun.”

That’s where most of life happens, isn’t it? In the split second between before and after, what could be and what might have been. And then you’re left with the questions. With the fallout of decisions made, both good and bad. Regret piled up on both sides of you, blessings in the front.