Now

Walmart after eight o'clock is a dystopia, empty and overlarge. They're pumping tinny vintage pop music into the atmosphere like a noxious gas, and the soaring industrial ceilings give it a ghostly echo.

I'm a bundle of anxiety and exhaustion as I jog my gigantic cart through the endless aisles, trying to find baby wipes, sweating under my snug fleece. I normally shop at the smaller local grocery co-op, but that's east of Eauverte and would take me thirty minutes out of my way.

"Come on," I say with genuine distress as I turn into an aisle of pet food. Didn't the greeter say aisle 26? I spin around a corner into garden supplies. Where the hell is the baby stuff?

"Excuse me?" I call toward a woman standing much farther down, the only person I've seen here so far since the greeter. The woman lifts her head but says nothing. Probably a shopper, not an employee, but I don't even care at this point. "Do you know where the baby wipes are?"

She stares at me as I trundle the cart toward her, past fertilizer and decorative pink flamingos and all-weather party lights. Did she hear me? She's still as a statue, a single terra-cotta planter in her hand. Older middle-aged, maybe sixty, kind of slumped, like her spine is made of wicker instead of bone. Her wisp-thin hair is dyed an awful cheap carroty red.

I stop a couple feet from her, breathing heavily. God, I can't wait to take off this fleece.

"Baby wipes?" I repeat.

She just shakes her head, her pale blue eyes wide.

Could you be any creepier?I think, but I force myself to say, "Thanks anyway," in a pleasant tone.

As I turn into the next aisle, I cast a quick look back. She's still staring, and then—

"Julia!" she cries in an unearthly voice. The shock of surprise gives me wings; I fly around the corner, the cart lifting off one side. I should be used to the recognition that comes with being something of a celebrity, but it still manages to feel like an attack every damn time.

I race all the way to the end of the aisle with a death grip on my shopping cart, make a sharp turn, then another, in case she's decided to come after me.

I never imagined that being a Synth would contaminate nearly every outing. In the past, I've tried to hide under sunglasses and oversize sweatshirts. I even purchased a wig once, but it was itchy, and the two times I wore it, I felt even more conspicuous. Anyway, I don't want to have to hide to be acceptable.

Andy has reminded me so many times that we're playing the long game with Synth rights. That our focus needs to be earning the public's trust, and that my social media has an important role to play. Regular, relatable content, he's drilled into me. They need to see you're just like them. But it all feels so burdensome. I don't want to spend my every waking moment thinking up that next great post that will make me seem likable, trustworthy, deserving. I don't want to have to work so hard to convince everyone that I'm a person. I don't want to be my own saleswoman on a team of one... And maybe this is the price of being different, but I didn't choose this price, I didn't even choose to exist, so why is it on me to keep paying it, when all I want is—

Wipes. Right in front of me. Hallelujah. I load three bulk boxes into the cart, followed by two jumbo boxes of diapers, because the fewer shopping trips I have to make, the better. I pause once, thinking I heard steps, but it's nothing. Still, I don't want to linger. I practically sprint toward the exit. There are two registers open. I choose the one with the younger employee. Less likely to be clued in to who I am, and less likely to care.

Sure enough, the bored teenager barely gives me a glance. I could hug her for her blessed indifference. As she scans my items, I check my phone. New text from Cam.

I'm thru in Indy Friday afternoon. Want a weekend guest?

YES!I reply. Normally I'd toss in a few emojis—champagne glasses, kissy faces, hearts—but considering what I have to tell her about Josh, it seems in bad taste. Three dots tell me she's already replying. The message pops through.

I'll bring the hard stuff.

I can't help but smile. It warms me to think of Cam on the other side of this exchange, tapping away at her phone, thinking of me. Despite the seriousness of Josh missing, I can't resist having a bit of fun after all. I type, You mean the tequila or your new dildo?

Her laughing emojis fill an entire text bubble followed by you bad bitch you just made me pee a little.

There's also a new text from Eden, but this one does not bring a smile.

Don't want to stress u out but the sheriff stopped by. He left something 4 u. Sorry!!! An anxiety-faced emoji follows.

"Fuck," I breathe.

"Enjoy your evening," says the teen in a deadpan voice.

I cut the twenty-minute drive home to twelve and screech into the driveway at 8:35. I can't get out of the car fast enough—the purchases can wait.

I stumble inside, all frantic energy, half expecting to see my house completely overturned by Mitchell and his cronies. But everything looks normal. Peaceful. It even smells good—like evergreen. Eden has lit one of my fancy candles.

And yet, nothing in me feels peaceful. Hasn't it always been like that for me? At odds with my environment. But is it something wrong with the environment, or me? On my way to the family room, I pass the small bedroom that we repurposed into a playroom and glance inside. I can almost see the skeletal ridges of the hospital bed that used to occupy this room. I shiver and walk on.

Eden's in the family room off the kitchen, snacking on microwave popcorn and messing around on her laptop. Captain, sprawled on the rug at her feet, is fast asleep.

The domestic scene feels...

Wrong.

Wrong like the tent Josh didn't sleep in, wrong like speeding in the night when your daughter needs you safe, wrong like...

Tick-tick-tick.

Oh, God. Josh's watch...like a finger tapping, counting down the seconds to something, something bad. The peace of this scene is butcher paper, hiding something rotten underneath that I don't want to see; it's all going so fast, mileage signs flying past in the night, and like a car lifting on a violent curve, the scene in front of me is tilting. Something terrible happened in this place, and Captain knows it—my dog's instincts have never been wrong—something to ruin every fantasy, smash every dream, and I'm slipping off the edge...

"You're back," Eden says, and snaps the laptop shut, snapping my strange slip-slide of thoughts closed, too. Her face looks soft in the low lamplight. Round, almost childlike.

Nothing terrible has happened here, except for the obvious: Josh disappearing. It's just my exhaustion, my adrenaline.

I probably spilled something on the rug; that's why Captain was so interested. Cheerios. Cookie crumbs. Take your pick.

"The sheriff came?" My voice, stripped of its normal layers of politeness, sounds harsh. Demanding. For once, I don't care. "What did he say? Is Annaleigh okay?"

Captain wakes at the sound of my voice, getting to his feet so suddenly he's falling over himself. He's at my side, large and comforting, and I bury my hand in the fur on his head.

"He was here a few hours ago." Eden tucks her laptop into her backpack. "I should have texted right away but... I didn't want to freak you out. Then I thought maybe it was better if you showed up knowing?" She looks a little guilty, a little upset. Normally I'd go out of my way to reassure her.

"What did he say?" I repeat. I'm used to looking at myself through the camera-eyes of others, so I know what Eden is seeing now. Not the bold, fearless person I try to project. Weak Julia. Unhinged Julia. Paranoid Julia.

But if I'm paranoid, it's because they've made me paranoid. If I fear the worst, it's because they've taught me how easily the strong can take down the weak...

"He wanted to know where you were. How long you'd been gone."

"Did you tell him?"

"Um...not where you were, because you didn't tell me, but...yes? I said you left around lunch and were coming home around dinner. Should I have—"

"No. It's fine. You said he left something?"

She gestures to the kitchen counter, but all I can find is my grocery list, sitting where it always does.

Ah. Right under my pencil list of baby wipes, broccoli, milk is scrawled, in blue ink:

I know how to run a damn plate.

Idiot.Of course the officer who saw me run away from Josh's tent took an interest in my vehicle. Especially if Miss Pert pointed it out. All that skulking in the woods with aching breasts? Could've saved myself the trouble.

So. Mitchell knows I lied about not remembering the campsite. He knows I booked it there after his morning visit, right after telling him that I couldn't join the search party because of my baby. He probably imagines I tampered with evidence. All of this, I'm sure, adds to his imaginary case against me.

What if I'd just told them the stupid campsite name when they asked? Or better—what if I'd gone to the campsite before filing the missing person report?

"What does it mean?" says Eden.

"Oh..." I say. I stop rubbing my collarbone. I didn't realize I was even doing it. I've irritated the skin.

"Are you okay?" Eden has sidled up to me, backpack slung over her shoulder.

"I don't know." My voice comes out shaky. I hate this. I need the world to slow down. I need to slow down...but if I don't stay five steps ahead...

"I'd better—" I gesture at the ceiling. Check on Annaleigh, shower, go to bed.

"I'll see myself out," says Eden. She hesitates. "You know where to find me."

Upstairs, I open Annaleigh's door quietly. It smells like baby powder and magnolia and that ineffably sweet smell that I know comes from Annaleigh herself. It's pitch-dark inside, with only the green light of the baby monitor piercing through, but the soft light from the hallway is enough for me to see her outline in the crib. Sleeping; safe.

I turn toward my room and the promise of a hot shower, but trip over Captain. He yelps as I stumble into the wall, knocking my head hard.

The spike of pain brings a flash of dark blue.

The California sky at twilight.

Memories explode so vividly, it's like I've been transported in time.

I'm poolside, on my back. A face above. Pale blue eyes. The woman. Attacking me for no reason I can discern. Hating me for no reason I can discern.

I suddenly realize who I just saw at Walmart.

Her hair is carrot red now, not gray, but the eyes are the same. Her expression, the same. Looking at me without emotion. As if I was the pot she picked up in aisle 27, my body nothing more to her than a mass-produced terra-cotta container. Empty of anything growing. An object she wanted to smash. Fragile. Defenseless.

It could have been any of us, we all said—but I should have trusted my first instinct.

It was me she was after all along.