else’s skin and cartilage, four to fix my broken teeth with mostly false ones, and another four to fix my legs. My hips hadn’t been pulled from their sockets, but it sure had felt that way at the time. But both legs had been broken, one worse than the other, and now two metal rods and countless screws resided inside me, extending from my shin bones all the way to the top of my thighs. My wrist had been sprained. My elbow shattered.
My heart smashed to bits.
I was beautiful once. Chris used to say so. Until my reckless driving had led us to the backend of a flatbed truck. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to hear the gravelly shake of his voice … to see that one eyebrow flexing playfully as he tucked my always-messy brown hair behind my ears …
You’re the most beautiful girl I ever did see: his words.
We hadn’t been upside down either, like the dream implied—another figment of my twisty reinterpretation of what actually happened that night. The car was crushed beneath the semi’s trailer, my whole world spinning like a top because that’s what happens when you have a concussion.
A big chunk of my nose was severed by windshield glass. And Chris … he’d lost more than his nose. His death was horrific. He didn’t deserve to die that way.
Splashing icy cold water on my face, I forced myself not to think of him. Deep down, I knew that if I gave in to that craving … to think about Chris, to go back in my mind to how things used to be … that it would become an obsession.
If I think too long and hard about Chris, I may never stop.
The anxiety pills helped with the flashbacks while I was awake.
It’s like there’s this version of me, living inside my head, and once the meds kick in, I can hear her in the corner, her voice murky and low … she’s scared, she’s worried, she’s ashamed … but then the pills flood my bloodstream and her voice gets drowned out completely. I imagine her in there somewhere, floating in the lazy river of my bloodstream, wondering when I’ll let her back out. The numbness never lasts—drugs help, but they can’t alleviate my misery. They can’t cure loneliness, either.
Sometimes that girl drifts so far downstream, I don’t think I’ll ever reach her again …
I flipped the light switch back off, the sudden change in lighting causing a sharp twinge 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
