Where My Life Became Storie
Let me be clear: this is my life, dressed in fiction's clothes.
I'm pulling back the curtain all the way.
This isn't just "inspired by" a true story. These are my bones, my blood, my memories rearranged on the page. I changed names. I changed some sequences. I left out the parts too bitter to swallow again. But the heart of it, the hurt, the survival, the love, that's all mine.
Below are the pillars of this story. They are not fictional concepts. They are my history.
From the Book:
"She had a two-year-old daughter. Her heartbeat, her reason, her everything."
My Truth:
I was a mother when I shipped to basic training. Every single decision I made, including joining the military, was filtered through that reality. The fear, the guilt, the ferocious need to build a better life for my child… that was my daily fuel. Storie's "why" is copied directly from my soul.
From the Book:
"I need you to marry me. Not for love, not for show, but to protect Siyah."
My Truth:
I really did marry my best friend. "Terry" is real, his name is changed, but his loyalty isn't. That marriage was a legal shield, a strategic move to protect my rights as a mother when the system asked me to sign them away. It was a pact born of pure survival, and it was one of the most profound acts of friendship I've ever known.
From the Book:
"Tiara's smirk… "We'll be living good, you'll see.""
My Truth:
"Tiara" is a real family member. That betrayal at the recruiter's office, the hollow promise of the Buddy Program, the selfish pivot that happened. The sting of being maneuvered by someone I trusted, while my child sat in the backseat, is a pain I remember verbatim. Fiction didn't create that scene; it just transcribed it.
From the Book:
"The Ford Expedition rattled past the Sphinx gas station…"
My Truth:
I am from Spartanburg, South Carolina. The dusty lots, the Friday-night hope, the feeling of being stuck while the world moves, that's my hometown. It's not a setting I researched; it's the air I breathed. Writing those scenes was like walking down memory lane in my own boots.
From the Book:
"The blows came fast. Fop. Fop. Fop. Fop…"
My Truth:
The abuse written in these pages, the physical violence, the emotional abandonment, the traumatic violations, are my lived experiences. I have changed some details and compressed timelines, but the flashbacks are not dramatic devices. They are my memories. Writing them was an act of excavation and, slowly, an act of reclaiming.
This book is my testimony disguised as a novel.
The journey is Storie's. The scars are mine.
Thank you for listening to her story, and in doing so, witnessing a piece of my truth.
Venetta Jones