in my right temple. The head pains often came and went so quickly, almost like they were a figment of my imagination.
I liked leaving every light in the house off and the shutters closed until darkness came, and I was forced to illuminate myself and my surroundings.
But one light in the house was always shining—the glare from my laptop computer. It beckoned me from my desktop in the living room.
Now, here is an addiction I can handle, and sometimes, control.
I turned on the coffee pot in the kitchen then sat down in front of my computer, a rushing wave of relief rolling through me. This was my life now—the internet, my only window to the outside world.
Lucky for me, it’s a pretty large window.
A lonely window, but a window, nevertheless …
“I wonder where we’re going today?”
I refreshed my browser from where it had frozen last night and Valerie Hutchens’ shiny face blossomed like a milky-white flower across my home screen.
_TheWorldIsMine_26 had over 2,000 posts and nearly 10,000 followers, and like Valerie herself, the Instagram account was growing and improving daily.
“Where are you now, Valerie?” I clicked on her newest Instagram story.
Branson, Missouri.
Straddling this world and the next. #livingmybestlife, her caption told me.
Valerie’s hair was different today—her sunny blonde bob had skinny curtains of pale pink on either side of her face. Maroon lips. Kohl-rimmed eyes. A body that was neither fat nor walking-stick thin, just perfect.
Valerie Hutchens is perfect.
In this latest story, she was straddling two train rails, arms spread wide in a V. Her palms were open, fingertips reaching for the sky. Dusty sunlight shimmered through her pale white dress. She had on brown leather boots—the boots she’d bought in Texas three weeks ago, I remembered—so tall they almost reached the hem of her dress.
I could feel the goosebump-inducing burn of the sun on the back of her arms and legs.
She was looking at something overhead, something no one else could see …
It’s like she doesn’t care if we’re watching. Like she’s simply living out loud, while the rest of us sit here in awe of her, just like we did back then.
But technically, that wasn’t true. If Valerie didn’t care what people thought, she wouldn’t be posting about her travels all day and all night on social media, I reminded myself.
But still, I didn’t really believe that either. Valerie operated on her own agenda, independent of everyone else—she always has.
I liked her post—I always do—then I flicked the screen off. Next, I forced myself to go shower and make some lunch.
My addiction to Valerie had become so great that I was restricting myself to one check per hour. And believe me, an hour was generous.
***
Lunch was a sizzling plate of chicken fajitas and spicy black beans.
The best fajita in the whole world lives right here in Branson #nomnom, according to Valerie.
It did look tasty—the juicy strips of meat and plump toppings spread out on an iron skillet billowing with steam.
She had changed her clothes since this afternoon.
In a dark back booth, she wore a low-lit smile, in what appeared to be a mostly empty restaurant. She posed for the camera in a lacy black shawl that slipped from her shoulders. If I maximized the screen, I could almost see the constellation of freckles on her right shoulder … four dots in the shape of a diamond, with a few little dots forming a tail, almost like a Valerie-version of the Little Dipper on her skin.
Her smudgy black makeup from this afternoon was gone, replaced with pale-pink shadow on her lids, no trace of concealer.
Lovingly, Valerie stared down at her plate of fajitas and beans.
Her beauty was inspiring, but also a constant reminder of my own ugliness. My own isolation …
I can’t remember the last time I ate Mexican. Or ate out anywhere for that matter, I thought, slowly chewing my limp cheese-and-mayonnaise sandwich. The cheese had expired two days ago, the edges of the slice slightly stiff. Chewing, I tried not to taste it. My cherry-oak computer desk was littered with soda cans and leftover plates from last night’s snacking-while-stalking session.
What a mess. Valerie makes me feel like a total slob. At the same time, I can’t stop watching …
My incision sites on my legs were sore but manageable; the headaches were painful but short-lived. The damage to my face was mostly about vanity …
The accident had changed me, and the damage was done. But it wasn’t so much damage that I couldn’t get around, or walk, or even drive for that matter. I had to be careful about driving because of my medication, but the doctor had cleared me anyway, much to my dismay. Ten weeks of physical therapy and now my therapist was encouraging me to get out and move more.
I can leave this apartment. I can clean up after myself. I’m capable of so much more …
But the truth was … I didn’t want to leave. I wasn’t ready to face the world, or more specifically, the people in town who knew about the accident. The accident that I caused.
I slammed my fists down on the desk on either side of the keyboard, rattling half-empty cans and spilling the contents of a dusty old pencil-holder.
Focus. Focus on what she’s doing.
Valerie’s newly dyed hair was pulled up into a sloppy ponytail, loose strands of petal pink curling around her face and neck.
I’ll never forget the first time I saw her.
Valerie wasn’t local; not one of those kids you’d known since grade school, wiping boogers on the back of your seat in first grade, then sporting a Wonderbra in seventh. We didn’t know anything about this new girl, not really …
She came from … where was it? Arizona, I think. Her parents were either dead or deadbeats; she’d moved in with her aunt. She was the ‘new girl’.
But to us, it was like she’d stepped off another planet and crashed into our hemisphere without any warning. And without an invitation.
Two weeks into seventh grade—my first year as a middle-schooler at Harmony—the alien showed up at our morning assembly. I was proud of how I looked that year. My breasts had developed into tiny buds that weren’t much, but they made me feel good, and I’d worked all summer, doing odd jobs, mostly babysitting, in order to buy six new outfits for school. Designer jeans. Fancy flannel button-ups (they were reversible!). A couple name-brand hoodies. A pair of painfully stiff Doc Martens. White, no-show socks and panties with designs on them that weren’t cartoons.
Every morning, I spent no less than an hour making my hair and makeup as flawless as they could possibly get. The only girls I envied were the few who did it better than me—some girls had better clothes, or they didn’t have to wear a repeat outfit on week two. Some of the girls had a knack for hair and makeup.
I envied some, but not many. I felt good in my skin … well, I thought I did.
But then the alien showed up, posing as a girl named Valerie Hutchens. When she walked into our morning assembly, the envy I felt was instantaneous. It consumed me …
But what I couldn’t understand was why.
She was wearing a T-shirt that obviously