The sidewalk outside the building was a little busy, something I’d need to get used to, but I wasn’t paying attention to the people walking by. I waited, eyes trained on the front doors of the church. Sooner or later, the woman would have to come out.
Finally, after about five minutes, the door budged. I ducked behind a garbage canister and peered around it. A woman hurried down the street.
Instinct kicked in before I could think about it. I kept my head low, weaving between pedestrians as I followed her. I didn’t want to get too close. A few times at conventions, I’d heard footsteps behind me. I’d spun around, fists up, ready to strike. Usually nothing happened. I was lucky, mostly. Except . . .
No. Not going there. Ever.
I was following this woman down the street. She didn’t look back once, like she wasn’t afraid. Trusting in her confession to keep her safe even though she was going through hell.
Stop following her. Creeper.
She walked to a parked car and beeped it open. I pulled out my phone and quickly snapped a photo of her license plate before she drove away.
Delete it.
Delete it now.
I’m serious, freak. Delete it. FUCKING DELETE IT.
What are you doing?
Stop it!
DELETE IT!
I shoved my hands in my deep pockets and turned back toward the church, my new home. There was something I needed to do.
3 Alexis
When I first got into cosplay, I was really obsessed with this anime series, Synthetica, a heaven-hell apocalyptic story that should have been cliché but somehow wasn’t. I identified really strongly with Jay, the protagonist. He could be a bit of a ragdoll sort of character, so passive I sometimes wanted to scream at him. He wasn’t particularly special—aside from the bionic wings implanted by scientists. And yet he persevered, trying to save the world from destruction even though he wasn’t the prophesized savior, because screw prophecies.
Luckily he had the help of two scientists, Ian Godby and Aaron Swatson, plus Raziel, the archangel of secrets, who guided Jay through the mess. When I first started watching, I’d been blown away by how grotesque the angels were, until a little online digging revealed that they were based on real traditional depictions of archangels. Turns out that according to a lot of lore, angels actually looked like Lovecraftian nightmares instead of pretty, innocent babies.
For the past three years my cosplay had revolved almost solely around that series, but lately I hadn’t wanted to think about Jay.
Now, at my computer, with my headphones on, I dared to play the soundtrack for the first time in almost two months. As I listened to it, I felt some of my old confidence returning. The beauty of Synthetica was that you didn’t have to be handpicked to be a savior. You could be ugly and weak and totally wrong for the job, and still pull it off.
I typed the woman’s license plate information into my search bar. It was super easy to identify her. Scarily so. Just a few keys, search, and there she was: Wanda Elmwood. Opening up a new tab, I typed her name into a social media app. There were a few people with the same name, but one avatar matched her face and the location matched our town.
Her profile and most of her page were public, like she assumed that no one would look her up. That her life wasn’t special enough. I saw pictures of her kids. Her husband. Everyone was smiling. If I hadn’t heard Wanda’s confession and had just happened to see her on the street, I’d think she was wealthy. I’d probably be one of those people assuming she was gaming the system because she didn’t “look poor.” Like poor had a look. What was it supposed to look like anyway? Torn clothes? Tired people covered in dirt?
Check your privilege, said the voice in my head.
It was right.
But it kept going, sentences colliding with each other. So much commotion, I didn’t know what the hell was actually going on. Droning in my ears constantly. Make it stop, make it stop. I needed to think like a heroine. No. Like a guardian angel.
Wanda Elmwood said she’d sinned. But anyone in that situation would. I’d steal. Mom’d steal. Dad was in the freaking army and even he’d steal if it was to make sure we didn’t starve.
She’d asked for help. If my uncle wouldn’t offer it—if God wouldn’t offer it—maybe I could. Like Raziel guiding Jay, I could guide Wanda.
I opened up another tab in my browser and pulled up the online white pages and job seeker sites. It didn’t always work. Some people scrub their internet presence clean. But others use their birthday as a password.
I stared at the screen. “Unbelievable.”
Within seconds, I didn’t just have her address and phone number but the information for a million of her relatives. Data that was probably mined and sold from subscriptions and who knew what else. I was pretty careful and I still got on a lot of lists after I started going to conventions and signing up for giveaways. For every time I hit “unsubscribe,” I’d be put on another list.
And it wasn’t just mailing list junk mail. Sophomore year, my ex thought I was cheating. To try to catch me, she went to a website where a person could anonymously send an email to anyone saying, One of your recent partners just tested positive for an STD. Please get checked at your nearest physician and contact every person you’ve been intimate with. I didn’t even suspect her. So oblivious that I complained on the phone to her about getting on a spam list, then fell silent when she confessed. Said it was a joke. Even though I was naive, I knew she wasn’t joking. She always did stuff like that. Like, how dare I decide to wear a skirt with fishnets to the mall? Clearly I was just trying to get men to stare at me. When I said that I wanted to wear fishnets and a skirt for me, her fist met my mouth.
You deserved it, the voice in my head berated me.
No. Fuck that. I didn’t deserve to be hurt.
Yes, you did.
You were too stupid to realize it was abuse.
You were too stupid to walk away earlier.
Cheater.
That part wasn’t true. I dumped people. I didn’t cheat.
You would have cheated.
You deserved it.
You deserved it.
Slut.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. I didn’t have time for this spiraling right now.
I kept looking through the results from my search. A resume popped up, one that she must’ve uploaded to a website recently. That’d make it easier—
Yikes.
A whole page of garbage written in Comic Sans stared at me. From what I could gather, she’d been an administrative assistant for various small businesses back when “proficient in Word 2007” was still a meaningful job skill.
You have no right to comment.
Fake trans.
Attention whore.
I squeezed my eyes shut. It was hard to ignore the voice when it kept getting louder, more chaotic, more painful. I couldn’t let it distract me now, not when I had an agenda. In school, often I fizzled out after the voice kept saying, Why bother? You’re just going to get Bs anyway. I’d thought it was right. What was the point in breaking my brain studying if I couldn’t get an A? The voice wanted me to get sidetracked, which meant I was getting to the root of something either really good or really bad.
I copied Wanda’s info down in a notebook. Writing things out by hand often helped me focus. The connection of hand to pen unlocked a door to new worlds. I wasn’t just thinking outside the box, I was thinking outside the universe.