Page 6 of My Super Sexy Spy
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.
LEIGHWhy? 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!
Travel 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 meanexperiencinglife 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?
