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Thank You for Finding Me - Longreads

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This story was funded by our members. Join Longreads and help us to support more writers. Lisa Bubert | Longreads | July 24, 2025 | 3,224 words (12 minutes) I have always done exactly what I wanted. Which is why I find myself on a shady facial recognition website looking for a bus driver I met when I was 14. My mother and I had come to Los Angeles for vacation, and we were on one of those “Homes of the Stars” tours that wound through Beverly Hills. This was the first time I’d ever left Texas in any meaningful way, the first time I’d been on an airplane, the only time I would ever see a meal on

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