by Donna Cooner
Caitlin sat on the swing and let her feet dangle onto the rocks below. Luna pushed herself out of the opening at the top of the slide and slid down, arms outstretched over her head.
I walked over to join Caitlin on the swings. “Thanks for trusting me with your journal,” I told her. “I didn’t know how you felt about your father. It helped me understand what you’ve been going through after your mom died.”
Caitlin nodded. “This whole vow thing wasn’t all bad,” she said. “At least it led to the journals.”
“Of course it wasn’t.” I looked at Luna. “And you wrote an amazing article because of it. One that connected with so many people. But I didn’t know until I read your journal how much pressure you put on yourself.”
Luna sighed. “It’s true.” She walked over and sat on the last swing.
Rocco watched us from his spot in the shade, grinning happily, his tongue out. I pushed off into the space before me, feeling the crisp air on my face. I pumped my legs and soared back out and up. The view of the foothills was eye level now, and the white-tipped peaks were in stark contrast to the brilliant blue afternoon sky.
“And I learned …” I said as the swing brought me back to earth. “To be here right now.”
Together we swung back and forth, not saying anything for a long time. Sometimes it seemed we knew each other so well we didn’t have to make explanations or apologies. But sometimes, there were whispers of everything we didn’t say.
“Are you going to go back to ChitChat?” Caitlin asked me after a few minutes.
I looked down and stopped the swing’s momentum by letting my feet drag through the rocks. “Not for a while. If I go back, I want to make sure I control how I use it and it doesn’t control me,” I said. “How about you guys?”
“Not yet, but I probably will,” Caitlin said. “I think I’ll just be more aware of how much I’m missing out on in real life when I spend too much time on ChitChat.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Me too.”
Luna was still swinging. “I’ve already gone back,” she called out from the top of the arc. Gradually, her swings grew smaller until she stopped beside us. “But it feels different now. Like you said—it doesn’t control me.”
“I heard Mariah posted a video of Discord’s whole performance at the Fall Festival,” Caitlin said, then looked at me like she might have said something wrong.
I rolled my eyes. “It’s okay.”
Strangely enough, Mariah didn’t matter. Maybe it was because I hadn’t gone on ChitChat since before the Fall Festival. I no longer knew what shoes she wore or what she ate for dinner. I didn’t know the name of the perfume she bought. I felt completely and utterly disconnected from her. And that was a very good thing. I could also think about Jameson now without feeling jealous or sad. I really had moved on from him.
“How about we do a ‘Phone Stays Home’ night tomorrow?”Luna suggested. “There’s this new burger place that just opened up on Walnut.”
“I can’t,” I admitted, feeling a blush start in my cheeks. Rocco padded over to me and curled up at my feet.
“Why not? You got something better to do?” Luna asked.
Reaching down to avoid eye contact, I stroked Rocco’s head. His tail thumped in response.
Caitlin immediately jumped on my uncomfortable response. “You do!”
“It’s not better,” I clarified, “but … I asked Isco to go salsa dancing.”
“That’s amazing,” Luna declared. “Is it like … a date?”
I shrugged, blushing even more. “I don’t think so, yet. We’re friends. But … maybe?”
We all three giggled like we were twelve again and had just discovered our first crush. I’d forgotten what that felt like.
“But the burger place the next night?” I offered. “Just the three of us?”
“And Rocco can come, too,” Caitlin said. “I think they’re pet friendly.”
“Perfect,” I said.
I reached my hands across the space between the swings, holding out my palms. Caitlin took one side and Luna the other. Together we synchronized, swinging in unison. The sun was lower in the sky now and a new chill in the air nipped at our faces, leaving bright pink spots high on our cheeks.
For a moment, I wished for someone to come along to take a photo of the three of us. I would have liked to document this moment. Then I sighed, realizing my brain still had some old habits to break.
I swung and watched the wind move the tops of the red-and-gold aspen trees, their leaves sounding like rushing water all around us. A dusting of snow covered the foothills in the distance, and beyond that the craggy peaks of the Rocky Mountains jutted into the bright blue sky.
The three of us didn’t need to record this moment.
We just needed to live it.
I shut down the computer. The black screen becomes a mirror. Instead of Bella’s and Camila’s gorgeous smiles, I only see my own fat, sad face. No matter what all the self-help mantras say, I am not enough.
I put the laptop on my nightstand, turn off the lights, and slide under my covers. I’m tired, but I can’t go to sleep. Instead, I toss and turn, rearranging blankets and changing positions over and over. Finally, I end up on my back staring up at the ceiling, my hands clenched in fists by my side. I think about the meme of me sitting down on the stool next to Jesse. The ChitChats from the party replay in my mind like a movie projected onto my bedroom ceiling.
Why am I here in this world? There has to be a reason.
I want to believe I would step up to push the child away from the speeding car, to rescue the drowning puppy, to walk the old woman across the street. I want to believe it. But how can I be a hero when I don’t even stand up for myself?
I understand cowards. They didn’t start out that way. Something changed them. At some point something horrible met them as they stepped up to confront their demons. Maybe it wasn’t all at once. Sometimes the demons chip away at you, whispering and slithering their way into the strongest of hearts.
There is a tiny spark of something I don’t want to face here with me in the dark.
It is anger.
And it is growing.
A tiny voice begins to whisper in some small part of my brain. It gets deeper and louder until I finally know exactly what to do. The thought takes hold and starts to grow.
Jesse Santos is only one member of the popular crowd. I can’t take them all down, but he has a target on his back. Maybe I can’t be the one to defeat him in my current form, but what if I shape-shifted into something else?
Or someone else?
I might be able to wipe that stupid grin off his face. Maybe I could actually make him care about something other than football practice and being cool and making fat girls like me miserable.
Minute electrical sparks tingle at my nerves. Adrenaline courses through my veins.
Wonder Woman doesn’t fight evil as Diana.
Superman doesn’t right wrongs as Clark Kent.
They change.
I sit up and turn on the light. My eyes wander over to where my comic strips hang on my wall. Dragons with glasses. Elephants with porcupine skins. Fairies with cell phones. Unbelievable creatures I can never become when all I really want to change into is a perfectly normal-looking teenage girl. A completely impossible dream.
Or is it?
I sit frozen, thinking. Katy Purry bumps her head against my hand. I rub the spot under her chin where I know she likes it most, and then I pull my computer off my nightstand. My mind races. The idea is still bubbling inside my brain. I think it over, scratching Katy Purry behind one ear. It is so wrong on so many levels and yet …
This is crazy.
Crazy awesome.
I turn my computer back on and open ChitChat. The best place for this little experiment to go down. I find the button for Create New Profile.
The empty screen with the blinking cursor makes me feel the same way I do when I look at the blank frame in my comic strip—po
werful and invincible. There is going to be something here soon that has never existed before, and I am going to be the one to create it.
I quickly discover lying—I mean creating—online isn’t complicated. It’s like drawing a new character for one of my strips, but instead I use my keyboard. First, I need a name. Something cool and a little bit unusual. My eyes wander over to my desk. The soft reddish-brown color of one of my markers speaks to me. It makes sense that my creation should emerge from the colors I use for my drawings.
Sienna.
I write in the new profile name—Sienna Maras. Even her last name has special meaning to me. In some Scandinavian shape-shifting tales I read once, the Maras are restless children whose souls leave their bodies at night to haunt the living.
So appropriate.
Now Sienna needs a bio. Something catchy. I spend the next thirty minutes researching different websites and celebrity social media accounts. Finally, I write, “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.”
It’s my own little inside joke. An Easter egg planted, but only for me.
I give Sienna’s age—sixteen—and her location: Denver. Close, but not too close.
And now the most important part.
The picture.
I start to search on ChitChat for images of random girls, but looking for my perfect replacement makes me bitter. The more pretty girl pictures I see, the angrier I get. So many likes and comments. So much praise. They live in a world I will never know. I feel the anxiety rising in my throat, choking me.
Telling me to be okay with my body through perky Pinterest statements and Dove commercials doesn’t change the way I feel inside. If I’m honest with myself, I would unzip my skin and step out of it. Just for a day. An hour. For a break. A breath.
Don’t ever admit that to anyone.
For now, I give up on finding Sienna’s perfect face. The picture is crucial, and I’ll take my time finding just the right one, even if it takes me all weekend.
Then, still in Sienna’s profile, I click over to Jesse’s page and hit the Send Direct Message button. I take a deep breath. This is it.
For every oink.
For every giggle.
For every eye roll.
For every turned back.
For every stupid meme.
For every broken heart.
A shape-shifter steps out of the shadows and takes up the challenge.
Donna Cooner is the acclaimed author of Skinny, Can’t Look Away, Worthy, Screenshot, and Fake. A Texas native and graduate of Texas A&M University, Donna currently lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with her husband, a cat named Stu, and two chocolate Labradors, Roxanne and Murphy. Follow her on Twitter at @donnacooner and on Instagram at @dcooner.
Fake
Screenshot
Worthy
Can’t Look Away
Skinny
Copyright © 2020 by Donna Cooner
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First edition, September 2020
Cover photos © Victor Torres/Stocksy
Cover design by Yaffa Jaskoll
e-ISBN 978-1-338-67824-6
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