Page 15 of Desert King

The men walk right by me. I swallow the lump forming. Am I really that invisible? Am I really such a plain Jane that a man I thought shared a good conversation with me yesterday would so soon forget? It stings that not even Roger remembers me.

I wipe the corner of my eye and make a dash for the ladies’ room. Pushing back my hair, I stare at my reflection in the mirror. I’m not that bad for a living ghost. I swipe my eyes feeling the tears waiting at the dam, wanting to spill over.

“Don’t you dare cry. Especially over a group of bikers, Amber.” Turning on the taps, I splash some cold water on my face.

In a few more hours I’ll arrive at my new life. I won’t be passed by ever again. I will be somebody, dang it. Somebody worth noticing.

The bathroom door opens with a bang as I stride out. My head doesn’t even turn in their direction. I practically jog over to the old, blue truck and climb in throwing my purse on the passenger’s seat. It’s then I notice the paper that drifts to the floor. I reach over, retrieving it. The title. After briefly, scanning it, I crumble it up and toss it back to the floor. I must be in a stolen truck. There’s no other explanation for a seemingly legit title complete with notarized stamp that claims the owner of this blue Ford is none other than: Little Brown Mouse. Address Unknown.

“That fucker!” My fist slams down hard on the dash. I pull out of the lot faster than I should, leaving a cloud of desert dust in my wake. My anger fuels me. It’s better than the bitter taste being invisible left in my mouth.

Instead of pulling back onto I-40, I keep going on the access road. There’s a super Walmart not far ahead.

I don’t waste time parking and going straight to the health and beauty section. I never bothered with shit like this before and barely know where to start. But I do know I want my face to look fierce and my hair to have just… more. I don’t even know what colors go with “white as shit” skin, so I just pick a bunch of bronzers dumping them into my cart. Next is ten different shades of lip gloss and a few tubes of mascara promising “lashes so long he’ll drop to his knees.” The picture on the box shows a diamond ring. A snort escapes me, but the box goes into my cart.

Next, I hit up the hair care aisle. “What goes over mud brown?” I pick up a box of pink, thinking my tips would look cool this shade but after scanning the box realize I’d have to dye my tips platinum first. I peruse a few boxes and dump three in. I use the self-scan and get back to my truck but not before I use my hand sanitizer and use an antibacterial wipe on my face. My mother’s words haunt me like a bad sex-ed talk. “You will not die. You will not catch it again,” I murmur to myself like a mantra. The world is slowly healing but will never be the same and I realize I won’t be either. But that’s okay. Because the version 2.0 of me is going to kick the shit out of the first.

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