Which I’ll be doing out in the open from now on—an exhilarating, anxious thought. This new territory of partial truth is going to be a tricky one to navigate.
Good thing I’m the best at what I do.
1
Madison
I may not even really exist outside of zeros-and-ones
NoBody: You got that package for me yet?
mermaidav: Working on it. Tomorrow.
NoBody: Yeah, that works. Wait, what are you still doing online?
I send him the middle finger emoji.
NoBody: Real nice. Aren’t you going to be late?
My eyes flick to the clock at the bottom right of my monitor. Shit. I’m gonna be late.
I tab over to the main window and shoot a quick goodbye to my odd little collection of internet strangers, which is answered with some genuine farewells from the newbies and some affectionate profanity from the people who’ve known me longer. It makes me grin as I log out of the various windows and chats I always have up, and start shutting down the programs that don’t need to run while I’m gone. When one gets stuck, I jiggle the mouse and curse—unsurprisingly, no help—and it throws a spinning wheel of frustration back at me.
This damn computer. With her white housing, black monitors, and gray internal components, she’s basically my Frankenstein monster I built two years ago for a fraction of what she would have cost new. She’s overpowered as fuck, which is necessary for both the redundant security protocols I use and the reason I have those protocols. And while her pieced-together form has served me well, I’ve been pretending to ignore how slow and unreliable she’s been getting for months now. It’s past time for an upgrade, but my sporadic paychecks keep getting split between pesky things like food, insurance, rent, and nursing home bills.
Damn, I miss not having to worry about money.
Once upon a time, I had a cool apartment in a good neighborhood in downtown Ulysses, NJ. I could afford the best weed, I bought new tech when I felt like it, and I even had an emergency fund. Then, Abuela had her bad fall, and we decided to move her into the nursing home, and it’s…veryexpensive. Well, good care is. With people who know what they’re doing, who show empathy and like their jobs. After a ton of research—I toured over a dozen facilities—I found the perfect place, but it has pretty strict visiting hours…
Shit. Iamgoing to be late. Abuela hates when I’m late.
I sniff the armpits of the hoodie on the back of my computer chair, shrug, and tug it on as I hurry through my bedroom door into the hallway and living area, ignoring the state of an apartment in desperate need of a clean.
Even dirty, the inside of my apartment looks like an old Mexican lady decorated it. Because she did. I took over Abuela’s much cheaper lease when she moved into the nursing home, and I didn’t really change much about the place. The couch is comfy, the art and pottery and little ceramic dishes everywhere are colorful, and while I haven’t subscribed to the ideology of it all in a long time, all the little gold-inlaid statues of various saints and prayer candles with the Virgin Mary decals bring me comfort in their familiarity.
My cat opens one accusatory eye from his curled-up position on the couch, irritated at the interruption. My furry son is a handsome tuxedo lad named Some Bills, both because that’s what he is—a fucking freeloader who can’t even catch the odd fly that gets in through an open window—and because it’s a great excuse to leave a social event. The looks I get when I tell people I have to go home to take care of some bills? Priceless.
“I’ll be back later. No loud parties this time,” I instruct him as that eye drifts back shut.
I shove my feet into some boots, effortlessly balancing the process of pulling on my sweater and arming the security system. At the last second, I remember the cranberry orange muffin I bought for Abuela, and dart over to grab the bag off the counter.
On my way out, I check my mailbox, and I’m not quick enough ducking out the door to miss my neighbor on his way in. I almost can’t contain my groan.
Ugh. This guy.
Todd is such a dude-bro. He’s cute in a twentysomething/former jock/peaked in high school kind of way, but he acted like I was a joke that the universe made up specifically for him the first time we ran into each other. Maybe it was the black lipstick. Or maybe it’s because I didn’t trip over myself to appeal to his conventionally attractive ass. I’ve found that his particular flavor ofhot guygets really butthurt at being denied the opportunity to deny someone first.
Men are the fuckingworst.
Dressed in sweats and clearly on his way back from the gym on this fine Sunday, he smiles to himself with a mean kind of glee as he turns to unlock the door adjacent to mine. His eyes flick down to the grease-stained paper bag in my hand, like he’s got some kind of butter homing device. “I thought I smelled fast food. Should have known it was you.”
Now, I love a good roast, but only when it’s well done. I was the brown, chubby girl in Catholic school, and pre-teen girls are much more creative and way meaner than Todd could ever hope to be. It’s frankly kind of sad for him, because I do think he’s genuinely trying to get a rise out of me with these lame-ass insults.
“Todd, so good to see you—and by that I mean it’s nice to see less of your face,” I gesture to my own chin with the pointer finger of the hand still clutching the rolled-up top of the paper bag. “Are you trying to grow a beard, or did you lose a bet? Because that is not coming in well, my guy.”
His lip curls, but he ignores the jab otherwise. “Where are you headed? I know it’s not the gym—even though it really should be. You know, you’d actually be pretty hot if you started working out, and cut eating all that crap.”
Unfortunately for his ego (because having a six-pack is his entire personality), being thin has just never been a priority, even if—or, perhaps, because?—society wants me to think that my value depends on how flat my stomach is. It’s pure vanity anyway, since my semi-regular doctor’s visits confirm that I’m healthy as a damn horse. Plus, I like how I look, just as I am.
