Five Minutes explores five minutes of a life in one hundred words. Five minutes is edited by Susanna Baird, with editorial support from managing editor Maria s. picone, newsletter editor kate meen, and founding reader bobbi lerman, plus our rotating team of guest readers, who you can meet in the latest newsletteR. Five Minutes was founded in October 2020, with the Salem (Mass.)-based writing group Carrot Cake Writers supplying the journal’s first pieces. We’d love to read your five. Submit here

She Knew

She knew the minute it happened. She started experimenting with cocaine at 16 having read and watched “Less Than Zero.” It was chic. Cool. Exciting. Dangerous. She had been playing with fire for some time now. She didn’t want to do it. Not the coke, but the sex. She knew he wasn’t a good guy. He was older. Cool. Exciting. Dangerous. Worse than the white powder she sniffed earlier. She knew, but she did it because she feared him. When he left her body, a seed was planted. She knew it would grow. It couldn’t grow. She wasn’t ready. She knew.

Darcy Alsop is a freelance writer, blogger, PR specialist and a mother of two. She holds an MFA in creative writing and a B.A. in PR/communications. Find Darcy online at www.discoursewithdarcy.blogspot.com and at www.dmaconsultingservices.net.

Miss B

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