Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 150878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 754(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 150878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 754(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
The room at the end of the hall appeared to be a guest room, and I set my things down in the upholstered chair in the corner and then turned to the dresser where there were a couple of candles and a lighter. This family had done as so many others had probably done as well—they’d placed candles in all the rooms, they’d lit fires in their wood-burning fireplaces, and then they’d waited it out, thinking it was just a winter outage and the lights would be back on shortly. Especially in a more remote place like this, it might have been several days before they realized something was very wrong.
I lit the candles and the wicks flickered to life, mixing with the final glow of the sunset through the sheer curtains on the window.
The door to the attached bathroom was open slightly and I went inside and tried the faucet just because but the only thing that came out was a few brown dribbles.
But when I pulled back the shower curtain, I saw that they’d filled up the bathtub before they’d left. “Yes,” I murmured. I plugged the sink and then used a cup on the vanity to scoop some water from the tub, using as little as I thought I needed to clean up.
A washcloth and a minute amount of their bodywash served to clean the road dust from my body. I twisted to dab at the wound on my hip, the one that hadn’t bothered me for days now, noting that it was almost completely gone. This odd feeling of disbelief overcame me to know that so much healing could happen when you weren’t even paying attention. And I had this sudden appreciation for my body that I’d never had before. Not because of the way it looked or performed, but because of the way it could heal. And hope blossomed, the belief that it wasn’t only our bodies that would mend from the tragedy befalling the world, but so would our spirits. In time.
I hummed as I took my hair down and used my fingers to work out the tangles. I could hardly remember what it felt like to have clean, blown-out hair. “Ouch,” I yelped when a finger got caught in my hair. I lowered my hand and saw that the last piece of my fake nail that had been glued to the bed of my thumb had lifted at the corner and snagged some strands.
The small remnant came off easily and I watched as the final piece of Nova dropped into the empty waste can next to the sink. I stood there for a moment, staring down at that tiny fragment of a different life, a different me. And I was surprised that that girl with the glamorous nails and luxurious hair extensions already felt so distant, the false parts of her dropped piece by piece on lonely back roads and in dewy fields as I was both lost…and somehow found.
I’d truly believed she was my ticket to happiness and so I’d embraced her even if that costume had never quite fit, not as uncomfortable as the last formal dress I’d worn, but a touch itchy nonetheless even if I couldn’t figure out why when to the naked eye, I looked so damn perfect. I wondered now how long I would have been able to keep up the facade of Nova, wondered if I would have taken a similar route as Jane Pritchard, numbing with pills and wondering why I was so unhappy if all my dreams had supposedly come true.
It was a sad sort of thought because while a part of me felt free, and even confusingly saved in ways I couldn’t untangle now, it was also a goodbye. To a thousand dreams that had come true for a moment but wouldn’t last. To bright lights and cheering crowds. To the superstar I might have been.
I went back into the bedroom, where I found a T-shirt in one of the dresser drawers. I hoped it was simply one someone who had stayed in this room had left behind and would never miss. But as far as a pair of underwear, I was going to be a brazen thief because even someone else’s clean ones were a luxury I could not pass up. I slipped the T-shirt over my head and then returned to the primary bedroom where I opened the top drawer and found the absolute bounty of an unopened package of cotton bikinis, size small.
“Oh sweet Jesus,” I breathed, bringing the plastic to my lips and kissing it. “Oh thank You, God.” I ripped the package open and pulled on the baby pink pair of underwear and then ran back to the guest room. I tossed the rest of the package of underwear into my backpack, threw myself on the bed, and then lay there grinning up at the ceiling. “Thank you, house owner, whoever you are. I will pay this forward.”