“Crybaby Bridge” – Rebecca Turkewitz

Rebecca Turkewitz knows how to spin a ghost story. There’s something so immediate to her characters, people who find themselves haunted by stories both real and supernatural.

“Crybaby Bridge” follows Sam, a high school girl whose family relocates from Massachusetts to Indiana, yet trouble seems to have followed her. She doesn’t fit in with the girls on her basketball team, and spends her time out of school with her older boyfriend, someone with whom she can’t totally be herself. With flavors of Carrie and a good urban legend, “Crybaby Bridge” takes a hard look at the roles we put ourselves—and others—into and the trouble that can lead us to.

This story was first published in Here in the Night (Black Lawrence Press, July 2023).