Ode to My First Car

Claire Kemp is approaching her final year of high school when a car crash interrupts the freedom she has only recently gained. To pay the resulting fine, she takes a job at a nursing home, where she befriends Lena, an older lesbian with stories about growing up decades earlier. Claire is also beginning to acknowledge that her feelings for her childhood friend Sophia may be romantic. Then another girl, Pen, enters her life and makes those questions less straightforward. Told in verse, this summer story connects a teenager's emerging bisexual identity with an older woman's memories, while Claire tries to distinguish familiar affection from a new possibility.