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Every night, the same thing: the car accident reenacted, but the details were always fuzzy, always evolving … whether the actual memories of that night were becoming lucid or more convoluted, was unclear.
I just wish they’d go away. Period.
It’s not that I don’t want to think about Chris. I miss him … I love him … but I can’t.
I can’t let myself go back to that place. I’m Hannah’s sinking ship, and Chris … well, Chris is mine.
No, dear husband, I will not come aboard.
Because if I do, if I let myself go there … that ship will suck me down, down, down, and never let me loose.
During my wakeful hours, I’d become an expert at burying my feelings. But these dreams—these warped flashbacks of the accident—were trying to remedy that all on their own. I could push away the memories and the horrors while I was awake, but when I closed my eyes … the dreaming side of myself took control. That side of myself wouldn’t allow me to forget, no matter how much I wanted to.
Maybe it’s payback for what I did.
Karma.
What goes around comes around—isn’t that how the saying goes?
For the rest of my life, will I have to relive those awful, ticking moments in that crushed-up Buick?
Of all the things about me that needed fixing, the sleep/dream issue was my priority. But my doctor wouldn’t prescribe sleep medication, or any other downers. They didn’t mix well with my other meds.
I want to be reassembled. Scrapped for parts. My memories wiped clean.
I padded down the hallway to the bathroom, leaving my buzzing phone behind. Without turning on the bathroom light, I began my lonely morning ritual in the dark—brushing my teeth, gargling mouthwash, combing the knots from my hair.
The dream snaked its way back into my brain while I brushed.
Cringing, I recalled the gummy taste of my own teeth. The teeth that I had initially—and strangely—believed to be my husband’s teeth.
I can still taste blood in my mouth. But whose blood is it?
It’s like sucking on a battery dipped in sugar.
Taking a deep breath, I flicked the light switch on before giving myself a chance to change my mind.
My toothbrush fell from my mouth, bouncing in the sink, as I studied my reflection in the bathroom mirror. No matter how many times I saw my face, I’d never get used to it now.
I look worse than the last time I checked.
It looked like someone was pinching my nose, the bridge a hard knot in the center of my face, the nostrils squished flat on both sides. The plastic surgeon had done the best possible job.
There’s only so much we can do, Camilla …
The skin on my nose was darker, which made sense—it didn’t belong to me. Ten surgeries and counting. So far—two to “repair” my nose using someone 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 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 belonged to her father, or maybe an older brother. Violent Femmes, the front of it read, the es on the end so faded that I couldn’t actually read it, I just knew the band, so I filled in the blanks. The shirt was three sizes too big for her and the crack of her shorts was crooked in the back. No-name shoes without any socks, the laces untied. Tweety Bird panties protruding over the top of her shorts every time she bent over to pick something up.
On that first day, she walked in and took a seat in the first open spot on the bleachers. She smiled at our principal, Mrs. Sauer, and even though Mrs. Sauer never smiled, she smiled back at Valerie that day.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she finger-combed her shiny, shoulder-length blonde hair. Long hair was in style that year at Harmony, or it was supposed to be … but somehow, Valerie’s short, stylish ’do ruined all that—it made me self-conscious of my own long, brown locks, and it wasn’t long before the “in style” was nasty tees and short hair and don’t-give-a-fuck shoes, because, let’s face it, what was really in style was: Valerie Hutchens.
Can I borrow a pencil? she’d asked one of the boys on the seat above her. He fell all over himself scrounging one up.
Keep it, he said. I’m Luke.
Luke was a nerd, so I rolled my eyes. But Valerie didn’t—she smiled with all her teeth, not a flirtatious smile but a genuine one, and then busied herself, writing in a black-and-white notebook poised in her lap.
What is she writing about? It seemed so stupid, so unimportant, how I felt this urge—this need—to know exactly what words she scribbled into that tattered old book of hers. But I never found out; no one did. She kept her writing to herself, just like she kept everything. She was so available, yet so private at the same time …
As the school weeks marched on, I learned a few more things about Valerie Hutchens: she was just as nice as she was pretty; she was smart as a whip without even trying; and she was talented in all things extracurricular: volleyball, music, theater, cheerleading, art, you name it. She signed up for everything. And it didn’t seem like a ploy to gain popularity, just an actual interest in all things Harmony. The boys followed her around like puppies; the girls wanted to be her friends. And although she was kind to everyone, she was never really close to anyone. Including me.
I admired her from a distance for the next six years as she blossomed into a young adult and carried her magnetism with her into high school. It wasn’t until tenth or eleventh grade that I realized why I wanted to be friends with Valerie. It wasn’t her talents or her creativity. It wasn’t her good looks or the way she lit up a room when she walked inside it. It wasn’t even the fact that she was so goddamned nice and likable.
It was the way she didn’t give a shit about any of these things.
Valerie Hutchens never laid awake at night, worrying about what she would wear to school, or who her friends were, or if she’d make the basketball team. Valerie was a floater, freely drifting through life on a fluffy cloud, always living in the here and now.
She had the confidence that I lacked, which is why I wanted to be her friend.
That smile … I wanted to be on the receiving end of it.
But her eyes floated over me; I might as well have been a ghost, stalking the airless halls of Harmony …
I would have preferred being hated or mocked … anything besides ignored.
I watched the others who followed her around—Luke and some of the other nerdy boys. Valerie was too nice to turn them away, too cool to give them a real chance. I wouldn’t stoop to their level; I wouldn’t grovel for her attention.
