Page 5 of Perfect
It’s just shy of five in the morning, but I know I’m not getting back to sleep, so I slip out of bed and change into sweats and my one pair of sneakers. I search for the nearest high school and make my way to the track, where a few older women and a handful of high school students are using the track before school starts. I warm up and run some quick drills before I sprint ashard as I can, not stopping until the constant churn of anxiety in the back of my head goes quiet.
Once I’m calm, I go home and get ready for my first day of work.
***
“So, you onlyreallyneed to know two things to do this job: first, there always needs to be coffee, because some of us have horrifying caffeine addictions.” Bailey points to herself with a wink. “Secondly, you’ll see Mrs. Hart often. She’s got a ton of money, no kids, and nine nieces and nephews. She usually comes in a week after every holiday to make changes to her will.” I raise my eyebrows, and Bailey gives me a playful smile and nods. “She usually writes them all back in after Christmas, although her nephew Jeremy has been out in the cold for years. No idea what he did.” Bailey shrugs, walking me from the kitchen to the desk in the comfortable reception area, and she spends the morning training me.
Bailey is chatty and warm and a little overly familiar in a way that feels endearing instead of irritating, and I get along with her at once. Suzie and Catherine both come in later in the day, and I spend all day trying to make a good impression on the three of them.
From what I can tell, I think they all like me.
I have to go into the bathroom several times during the day to breathe, and I have to pinch myself a few times so I don’t cry. I have a new name, a job, an apartment I spent all weekend furnishing with things from the thrift store, and Danny isn’t here.
It feels surreal and overwhelming, but this is my life now.
***
After work, I go home and pull a microwave meal out of the freezer. I don’t love eating things like this, but after years of being expected to cook three meals a day, food for parties, and elaborate holiday meals, I’m not cooking another day in my life if I can help it. I take my microwaved food into the living room and turn on the TV, putting on a cooking show in the background while I eat.
I might not want to cook ever again, but I still find the process soothing and familiar.
I try not to think about how long it took me to learn to cook the way Danny liked, or what happened if I didn’t do it right. I force myself not to think about the nightmare from this morning, and I do my best to ignore everything that happened to me before I moved here.
It didn’t happen to me, it happened to Alice Murphy, and I’m not her anymore. There’s a defined before and after, and I can choose to shut it all out, so I do.
***
For so many years, I barely got to make any choices for myself. Even if I got to make decisions about something, I had to consider Danny’s preferences. I have to make so many choices now, abouteverything, and I’m the only one who has to be considered. I get to wear whatever I want, eat whatever I want, go wherever I want, speak to whoever I want, everything. I’m in complete control of my life.
It’s overwhelming.
It’s terrifying.
It’s fuckingamazing.
I furnish and decorate my shitty little apartment with things I find at the thrift store, trying to make the space as comfortable as I can. I make up a past for myself. I make lists of things I needto do, things I want to do, and things I’ve never done. There are things that I can’t do, like get a car or health insurance or tell people about my life, but I control whatever I can. I begrudgingly budget, split up the remaining emergency cash, and hide it all over the apartment. I also hide the ring and my ID, just in case I need them.
I get to know Suzie, Catherine, and Bailey better while trying to keep them from getting to know anything about me beyond the surface level.
I buy a paper planner and start organizing my new life like I used to in high school, using different colored pens to block out my days, and I organize the calendar on my phone and my work computer the same way. Seeing the structure of my life taking place feels grounding, and it reassures me every time I look at the planner that I’m in control. I buy myself nice running shoes and start running regularly for the first time since I left Boston. The recreation center is a ten-minute walk from work and has fitness classes available during my lunch hour, so I start taking whatever they offer during the week.
Between the control, the constant physical activity, and the fact that Dannystillhasn’t found me, I start relaxing enough that I can sleep long hours regularly, and the nightmares get less frequent. The lack of stress makes my appetite return fully in a way I haven’t experienced in years, and I start gaining weight. It terrifies me initially, but Danny’s not around to throw a fit over it, so I let it happen. It’s my fucking body.
I take the bus into Portland on Saturdays and recreate the way I spent the first few weeks of my new life, walking around doing whatever I want to, trying hard and often failing not to spend money.
I explore Astoria after work and during my lunch breaks, getting to know my new home. It’s charming, small enough that you start to recognize the same strangers, but large enough thatit’s not boring. The slow, constant trickle of tourists adds some interest to the working-class families and rich retirees. The town is set back slightly from the coast, but getting to live near the ocean excites me.
The coast here is so different from the coast back home, but it’s stunning. The dense wall of evergreens abruptly changes into dunes coated in pale beach grass, which give way to a long, flat stretch of dark grey sand that disappears into the frigid blue-grey waves. Large trucks drive slowly on the beach, and it’s cold and slightly foggy every time I go.
I walk past an art supply store one Sunday and realize that I want to make something for the first time in years. I spent my entire childhood attempting to be as talented of an artist as my mother, but I gave up making art entirely after she died. Walking into the store makes me feel like I’m coming home, in a way, and I abandon my budget. I fill my basket with sketchbooks and canvases and pencils and paints and inks, and I leave the store feeling a little more like myself.
I start spending every Sunday at the beach with the decaying iron skeleton of a ship’s hull buried in the sand, sketching and painting it in different mediums and styles. I see a small herd of elk in the park surrounding the beach, and I do my best to sketch them from a distance. I sit out on the pier and paint the ships drifting up and down the mouth of the river, and I draw the old, intricate Victorian houses that are peppered throughout the town. I start hanging up the pieces in my bedroom, surrounding myself with reminders that I can express myself again.
As the weeks start to pass, I realize that even with all the lying and pretending, I’m more myself than I’ve ever been.
I found it hard to be Alice Silva.
I hated being Alice Murphy.
