Fort Wayne, Indiana

Fort Wayne, Indiana is Ford's hometown and the place where her family still lives. The town carries traumatic but also sentimental meaning, as she experienced both the sweetness of familial companionship and the trauma of abuse and sexual assault in Indiana. When she describes returning home to visit after being at Ball State University, Ford emphasizes how disconnected she feels from events and people there, having waited her whole life to get away from the moodiness of her mother, the indifference of her classmates, and the complications of her family life. Though she returns to Fort Wayne for her grandmother's funeral, Ford does not seem to hold any love for the town.

High School

High school was a tumultuous experience for Ford who describes feeling like an outcast even though she was not explicitly bullied. When she felt unsafe at home, she began to spend...