TRIP THROUGH YOUR WIRES

Carey Halpern's junior year abroad in Guanajuato, Mexico, ended abruptly when her boyfriend, Ben, was murdered. The night of the shooting, he'd stood her up for a date, and she wound up in his best friend's bed. They woke up to a pounding at the door and the news that all anyone could find of Ben was his wallet and a shoe.

Seven years later, Carey is treading water in temp jobs and living in her parents' unhappy Indianapolis house. She thinks that she has successfully buried her grief and guilt. But a job she takes at an authentic Mexican restaurant, a familiar stranger in a chat room, and an abrupt new clue in Ben's case all combine to force Carey to revisit her vivid memories of her time in Guanajuato: Ben, who she loved obsessively and then betrayed, the caring Mexican host family that she ignored, and the pieces of herself that she lost in the process. TRIP THROUGH YOUR WIRES alternates between past and present and Mexico and Indianapolis as Carey struggles to understand Ben's role in her life—and her role in his death.

Sarah Layden is the winner of the Allen and Nirelle Galson Prize for fiction and an AWP Intro Award. Her short fiction can be found in Stone Canoe, Blackbird, Artful Dodge, The Evansville Review, Booth, PANK, the anthology Sudden Flash Youth, and elsewhere. A two-time Society of Professional Journalists award winner, her recent essays, interviews, and articles have appeared in Ladies' Home Journal, The Writer's Chronicle, NUVO, and The Humanist. She teaches writing at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Marian University, and the Indiana Writers Center.