I held onto the crumpled letter in my hand as the Uber slowed to a stop. My heart was beating so fast I could feel it in my throat. This was it—the first day of my new life. I had finally escaped that tiny town where everybody knew everybody else’s business, where the mail took forever to arrive, and where finishing high school felt like climbing a mountain because the system moved so slow. The letter saying I’d gotten the job in Los Angeles had come weeks late, but it came. That was all ...