Page 3 of East

Black and white. Now and then a touch of gray.

That’s the world I grew up in. The monochromatic land of Kettle Springs, a rural hole several miles outside the Champaign-Urbana area in southern Illinois. Good old-fashioned farm country populated by good old-fashioned farm folk wearing good old-fashioned plain clothes that years of sun exposure had drained all the color out of. And it wasn’t just the clothes. The sun sucked every bit of color out of the grasslands and crops, out of the buildings, even out of the townspeople’s skin.

No joke. I swear there are some colors I never saw until I moved to Chicago. The dazzling reds and yellows of the fast-food restaurants, the blinding blues and purples of the marquees and billboards, the stunning greens and oranges in the parks. Hell, even the pigeon shit I dodge every day coming off the L is vibrant compared to what I grew up with.

A cornucopia of color compared to Kettle.

And not just literally. Life here is more intricate, more nuanced. Back in my hometown, you were either a good person or a bad person. Moral complexity has no place in the country. In lots of other towns, you’d hear about the whole community banding together for some shared cause. Not the case in Kettle Springs. The culture there was all about self-sufficiency. The only person you could bank on in a crisis was yourself.

And my God, did crises abound.

That sun that sucked up all the color? It also sucked all the water out of the ground, made it hard as hell to grow the crops. The crops that did survive were peddled at a local market by my stepmother, Emelia Insworth. Emmy—that’s what I called her—and I were lucky to scrounge and scrape a few hundred calories’ worth of dinner together every night.

The sun took all the color out of Emmy, too. It took the sparkle out of her eyes, the rosiness from her cheeks, the pigment from her lips.

It wasn’t just the sun, though, if I’m being honest. Emmy was twice over a widow. First she lost my father, Hank Storm, to cancer. And then her second husband, Bill Insworth, died of an overdose not long after their wedding.

Dad was warm until the cancer took it from him. I was thirteen when he passed. My real mother died in childbirth. Emmy, his second wife, took me in out of the goodness of her heart.

Her words, not mine.

Then she married Bill, rat bastard that he was.

Like I said, in Kettle Springs, you were either good or you were evil.

And Bill was evil.

When he died, it was righteous judgment from a higher power.

A comforting thought as I wake up from my afternoon nap. I check the time on my phone. Four o’clock on the dot. Just like every day.

I have an untraditional sleep schedule. I’m a meteorologist for ChicagO2 News, and I do the weather forecast every morning at six, eight, and ten.

Yes, my last name is Storm. No, that’s not why I studied meteorology. But even I can’t deny that Thea Storm is a killer name for a weather girl.

I have to get to the studio at five every morning to get into hair and makeup. It’s a half-hour drive from my townhome in Roger’s Park, and I like to have a cup of coffee and catch up on emails when I first wake up, so I set my alarm for four. To get my full eight hours of sleep every night, I’d have to start getting ready for bed around seven-thirty.

Since I enjoy an active social life, that’s not an option. So a few years ago I started experimenting with sleep schedules, and I finally found one that works for me. I go to bed at midnight most nights, wake up at four, go to work—which ends around eleven—eat a light lunch, and then nap from noon to four. It took a couple weeks for my body to figure out what I was doing, but now I’ve trained it to function off a split schedule. I feel fully rested after each four-hour sleep session.

My cat is snuggled up next to me—her usual place during my mid-day nap. I give her a scratch on the back of her neck. “Hey, Dodo.”

She stretches and slinks to the other side of the bed.

Her Christian name is Rosanna, but I’ve called her Dodo from the day I adopted her because it was clear she didn’t have a single thought in her pretty little head. But she’s sweet as all get out, almost more dog than cat in personality. She might not have two brain cells to rub together, but she’s mine and I love her.

Dodo knows she gets her dinner after my nap, and she starts mewing as I rub my eyes and let out a yawn.

“I’m coming, sweet pea. One sec.” I get on my feet and pad to the kitchen, pour a measured quantity of kibble into Dodo’s little bowl. I toss a pod into my Nespresso and sit down on a cushy wingback chair I found in a nearby thrift shop to check my messages. No texts, and the only emails I have are from people trying to sell me something. I swipe them all away, grab my cup of coffee—no milk or sugar, thank you—and try to figure out what to do with the rest of my day.

It’s Thursday. I could go out.

Only problem is I can’t stand anyone I work with.

Okay, that’s not exactly true. I tolerate most of my colleagues. Micaela Fields, one of the two of the main anchors on ChicagO2, is the only one I truly dislike. She can go fuck herself up her fake ass with a cactus as far as I’m concerned.

I had a group of close friends who lived around here, but most of them have gotten married, moved away, or both. If I want to go out, which I do enjoy, it’s usually for a date.

And my God, have I kissed a lot of frogs.