Putting Out

by S Doyle

  Not that I’d had a plan when I left home. I’d only been trying to get away from my mom and the drugs and the Johns. Men who’d started to ask if they could get a two-for-one.

  When that began to happen, I knew I had to go, because I also knew if my mother thought she could get more money for me, she’d pimp me out in a heartbeat. I truly thought I could take care of myself better alone on the streets.

  One of the things you realize about being homeless is that it’s pretty boring. There was nothing but time and figuring out ways to kill it. Getting through the day so you could figure out how and where you were going to get through the night.

  I spent a lot of time at the library. First reading. Then getting my GED, then, at some point, I started monopolizing the library’s computer which had free access to the internet.

  I learned what blogging was, and one thing led to another, and I started my own blog.

  At the time, I was reading these travel books. Describing places all around the country, then around the world. Tour guidebooks that told the reader what time the museums were open, and the best restaurants to visit, and all kinds of minutia.

  For me, those books were an escapist fantasy. When someday my life wouldn’t suck. And someday I’d get a job and have money to travel. And someday I wouldn’t worry about where my next meal was coming from.

  But the thing about all those guidebooks is that they were pretty bland. No real descriptions or heart. Just facts.

  So that’s what I wrote about. Places where I wanted to go. Only I wrote about them as if I’d actually been there. I would research the shit out of a city or area or town, use Google maps and images. It was almost like I was there.

  Walking the streets of places like London and Paris, San Diego and Seattle. I wrote about how those places made me feel, not only what was cool about them or what touristy thing a person should do there.

  I called my blog A Lover’s Guide to Travel. And the absolute most bat-shit crazy thing happened.

  It went viral. Not overnight or anything, but after a couple months I was getting hundreds of comments on each blog post. Then came the emails from people who wanted to pay me money to advertise on my site.

  Money. For writing about places I’d only researched. It was like the universe was trying to hook a sister up!

  I went from living on the streets to living in seedy motel rooms. To nicer motel rooms. To an apartment, and now, a condo. That I owned.

  Meeting Jared at a bar near his college campus, it felt like that was the next move. The next step away from the life I’d had and toward something that would look and feel normal.

  After a few years, it was almost like I’d never been there. On the streets. At all. Like I was a regular person who grew up in a traditional home. A woman Jared’s mother felt worthy of at least pretending to like.

  Only now he was my ex-boyfriend.

  The really horrible part about tonight wasn’t getting dumped. It was the guilt I felt at what I’d done to Jared. I did like him. I’d never not liked him. He was easy and comfortable.

  Jared was like a sweater in the winter. Warm and soft and fuzzy.

  Except my decision to date him had been practical, not emotional, and that was wrong.

  Maybe I was too broken. Maybe those months on the street, during which I’d had to be constantly hyperalert every second of every day, made it so I would never trust another human being again. That I would never open up, emotionally, to anyone.

  Because Jared was right about that, too. I worked solo. I didn’t really have any good friends. Any of the ones I’d had growing up, I’d had to scrape off or get sucked down into the gutter with them.

  I had advertisers who I dealt with and had casual contact with them.

  But really, there was only Leigh. Jared was right about that, too. She was someone I’d recently started chatting with online. A fan and reader who commented a lot on my blogs. One day I replied to her comment and we’d struck up one of those odd connections. Which led to the very existential twenty-first century question.

  In the age of the internet, could you consider someone you’d never met a friend?

  Not that I cared. Because what did it matter if I didn’t have people in my life? I wasn’t lonely. Should I have been lonely?

  That was the impetus for me deciding the last piece of putting my life back together was getting a boyfriend. Once I had that, then I could really pretend I’d made it through a shitty teenage experience.

  Only the truth was that hadn’t made me normal. It had just checked off a requirement I thought I needed in my life. Which meant I was still pretty broken. Having a meth-head mom will do that to a person.

  Okay, so maybe the whole Jared dumping me thing was another message from the universe. Maybe it was telling me I needed to change things.

  I glanced down at what I was wearing underneath the coat I hadn’t bothered to take off. Yoga pants, T-shirt and yes, I’d bothered to put on a bra.

  He was right about that, too. It was what I’d slept in the night before.

  Nothing was changing tonight though. I could deal with my not normal life tomorrow.

  Tonight, I planned to drink wine, curse Jared in my head, and remind myself that no matter what shitty stuff had happened to me today, I was still a million miles away from my worst day on the streets.

  I thought of someone who I could tell about my public dumping. Someone who might listen while I bitched about my now ex.

  Walking over to my desk I snatched my MacBook Air. My most prized possession. I’d started my blog on an old PC in a library, and with my first real check from advertisers I’d bought the Mac and with it, my independence.

  I could write anywhere, get free access to Wi-Fi at any Starbucks or Barnes and Noble. I could explore the world and tell people all about it from a shitty motel room with one window and a squeaky bed.

  I poured my glass of wine, sat on the couch with my laptop and opened up my latest blog post and read the last comment.

  LEIGH: You can’t be serious. You can’t say that bread is simply breadier in France.

  I smiled. Okay, she might not actually be a real friend, but she was something. Our back and forth messages had started when Leigh, after raving about a piece I wrote, would ask some questions, which forced me to do even more research to provide the answers.

  I never lied about being in those places…exactly. However, it was probably a given to anyone reading the blog that I was speaking from experience.

  From there the questions and answers changed to basic chit-chat. Eventually we became Facebook friends and messaged each other through direct messaging. Now Messenger was an app on my phone as well. As if we were texting, we talked a couple times a day.

  Opening our last chat, I tossed out a lifeline.

  ME: Hey, you around?

  Reading over our last conversation I realized it had ended a little abruptly. I’d told her about the book deal a New York publisher was offering. I grimaced at how curt I’d sounded.

  LEIGH: That’s amazing. A whole book written by you. You should be so proud.

  ME: I don’t know. They’re really bugging for pictures and stuff. Selfies with me around the world. They want me to grow my social media platform on Instagram and shit like that.

  See, with Leigh it was okay to curse. Okay to be myself.

  LEIGH: So? What’s wrong with that? You want to sell books don’t you?

  ME: I don’t do pictures.

  LEIGH Why? Are you ugly? Scars? Warts?

  ME: No, BITCH! I’m normal looking…well except my nose ring. I just hate the idea of promoting myself. The blog is about the places I write about. The location is the star…not me.

  LEIGH: Sure, but you like money, right?

  ME: I like my privacy better.

  That made me wince. Because it wasn’t exactly true. The real reason I didn’t want to do pictures and selfies of me traveling the world…is because I didn’t want to travel the world!

  T
ravel meant flying to places, putting myself out there. Leaving home for days and weeks at a time. Something that felt entirely unsafe.

  Traveling would also mean experiencing life instead of just writing about it.

  I sipped my wine and hated my self-doubt.

  My computer dinged with the notification of a message.

  LEIGH: Yeah I’m here. What’s up?

  ME: Just having a shitty night. Wanted to feel like I had a friend in the universe.

  LEIGH: Sorry you’re having a bad night. But I’m totally your friend. Internet friends are real. Just ask anyone else who has an internet friend.

  ME: I got dumped by my boyfriend of two years.

  LEIGH: Oh shit! Are you heartbroken? Do you need me to fly to Philadelphia so we can eat a tub of ice cream together and bitch about him?

  I smiled and took another sip of wine. See, there was someone out there who had my back. I wasn’t completely cut off from society. Take that, Jared!

  ME: No, I’m not heartbroken. Which probably makes me a crappy person. I just really liked saying I had a boyfriend. It made me feel normal about my life.

  LEIGH: What’s not normal about your life?

  No way was I telling her about my history. It would freak her out. I’d told Jared, because he wanted to know why I was twenty and still living in a motel room when we met. At the time, he’d reacted with pity and that was the last thing I needed tonight.

  ME: Just the normal shit everyone probably has. Nothing extraordinary.

  LEIGH: Was he good in bed? Are you going to miss the sex?

  ME: I am NOT going to miss the sex. You want to know a secret?

  LEIGH: Always…

  I took another sip of wine. This was a step. This was an opening-up step that was probably going to leave me feeling totally vulnerable tomorrow.

  ME: I don’t really like it. Sex, I mean—so there, that’s not normal.

  Was there a little bit of a pause there? Was I imagining that? Hell, for all I knew she just went up to get a glass of water.

  LEIGH: My guess is that has everything to do with the person you’re having sex with—and not about you.

  ME: I’m not gay or anything. If that’s what you’re thinking. I like dicks. I really do. I just sometimes don’t see the point.

  LEIGH: Again—that’s about the guy dicking you. Not you.

  ME: Thanks. I can’t believe I actually admitted that.

  LEIGH: That’s what internet friends are for! Total anonymity while we confess our biggest secrets.

  I sent her a smiley face and said goodnight. Then I logged off, finished my wine, and got into my nice, soft, comfortable bed. And just like I did every night since I’d learned how hard a bench was, or a cardboard bed, or any of the other shitty places where I slept when I was homeless, I said a silent prayer to whatever gods watched over me back then to get me to this place.

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  Also by S. Doyle

  The Bride Series

  Just Call me Jane Series

  The Boss Series

  Alaska Hot Series

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