Chapter 4
4
Chloe’s most recent post is a sponsored selfie. She’s on her white couch in a bathrobe and face mask, a bright smile on her glossy lips. Wine in hand. Caption: This is your sign to take a break from life. Grab a glass of wine, a good face mask (my pick is the @KareKosmetics refreshing cucumber skin ampoule 24x hydration mask with hyaluronic acid), and tune in to your favorite new show. We all deserve a break. #selfcare #sponsored #Kare Partner.
I roll my eyes and scroll down to the date.
Posted two weeks ago.
Huh. Chloe normally uploads three times a week—minimum. I comb through her other socials. No uploads for the last two weeks. No announcement of a break either.
Judging from the hundreds of comments, her fans are just as uneasy as I am.
Are you okay?
Where did you go?
Did you die?
She was alive enough to call me yesterday.
Scrolling is like climbing down a ladder, each worried comment a rung lowering me until I’m chin-deep in a pool of her followers’ concern. Overwhelmed, I throw my phone in my nightstand, shower, and try to go to bed early.
I can’t fall asleep.
I’m pulled toward Chloe, unable to tamp down the unease. Something isn’t right.
I call her five more times. Voicemail.
Maybe I should get someone to check up on her. Who? Her friends? I don’t know any of them personally. I could call the police and ask for a safety check. But I don’t know where she lives. In the past, if I had to contact her, it was always done through the real estate agent.
Then I remember the property deed. It had to have Chloe’s address on it, since she’s the legal owner of my house. Judging from the background of her videos, she hasn’t moved in five years.
Where did I put it? The last time I looked at it was after my aunt tried to forge the deed into saying the property was in her name so she could illegally rent out the house as an Airbnb. (She only relented after I lied about Chloe having lawyers who would sue her broke.)
I search for hours before finding the papers in the drawer beneath the oven, smooshed between cookie sheets and instruction manuals. I wipe off the dust and breadcrumbs.
There it is on the first page, printed in shiny black ink: New York.
Her address is in my hands, yet I can’t bring myself to dial 911, dread paralyzing my fingers. I’m reminded of the time the cops were called on me. A moment I never want to relive.
My aunt had opened a bank account for me when I was twelve and instructed me to start saving if I wanted a future. At the time, I saw it as a kind gesture. Throughout my teens I saved nearly every dime I earned working at SuperFoods. By eleventh grade, I had amassed over five thousand dollars. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to move out, to dream.
But a week before my seventeenth birthday, my savings dropped to five hundred dollars. The bank informed me that since my account was started when I was underage, it was a custodial account, meaning my guardian had full control of the funds. When I confronted my aunt, she said: Do you know how much it costs to raise you? To feed an extra mouth?
At her words, a black hole formed in my chest, swallowing every ounce of motivation I had left. I became empty. For days after, I tried to identify what was wrong with me, wanting to rationalize my misfortune: dead parents, no family, an unreachable twin, a despicable aunt, isolation. It was mental self-flagellation. Recognizing problems is pointless when you have little motivation to fix them. And finding motivation is impossible when the mere idea of existing feels like a punishment.
Then, one night, a classmate had texted me, begging me to finish my section of a group project. I still don’t know what came over me that evening. Why I replied with radical honesty. Maybe I was trying to justify my truancy; maybe I just wanted attention? But the message became lethal. She called the cops on me for a wellness check.
The check was anything but well. A cop car pulled up to my aunt’s house with its sirens blasting, blue-red lights illuminating the night as the officers banged on the door like I was about to kill. The two cops—both men—were strapped for a shoot-out: bulletproof vests, batons, hands cupping their gun holsters. One had bloody ketchup smeared on his chin. The tang of greasy fast food settled thickly in my gut as I slumped into the living room sofa, enduring a barrage of close-ended questions about my safety and mental stability. Their stares made me feel worthless, a waste of air. The whole time, my aunt was smiling at the cops, offering them tea and pastries. Tricked by her grin, I thought she was finally sympathetic to me. But as soon as the cops left, she stomped over and slapped me in the face. How dare you make a big fuss out of nothing!
I was left with a chest full of embarrassment and shame, more helpless than ever. The mere idea of speaking to the cops became triggering. After all these years, I still can’t bring myself to do it.
Maybe I’m making excuses for myself, but calling the police also seems premature. There’s no point in making a fuss when I’m still not sure what happened to Chloe or if the cops are the right choice of intervention. (And let’s be honest, they’re rarely the right choice.)
I’m sitting on my dirty kitchen floor, biting my nails, staring at her New York address. I know if I keep ignoring Chloe, her voice will never leave me.
And if I’m being honest, I can’t shake off one simple truth: I want to see her— wanted to before this. Viewing her through a screen was never enough.
I buy a bus ticket to New York for the following evening.