Infinitely

Where is Sarah?

So here I am minding my own business, casually checking my Twitter account for the first time in two weeks, which is, you know, basically a century in Twitter time, when I realize something is off. And when I say it's "off" I mean that I, Sarah Allred, am a trending topic on Twitter. Of course not my name, not just "Sarah Allred" like that all boring or whatever but I actually have my own trending topic: Where Is Sarah?

"No way," I scroll through all the tweets. It's a serious pain in the ass to do this on my phone but I'm not allowed to have a computer in my room here. I wouldn't be allowed to have my phone in my room either but no one knows I still have my iPhone.

From what I can tell most of my followers (I'm close to 3 million now!) think I must have some kind of surprise for them since I haven't tweeted or posted anything on Instagram in two weeks and no one has seen me out in L.A. I really wish I did have a surprise for them but I don't. All I can do is tweet my own "Where Is Sarah?" followed by a winking face and hope that keeps everyone guessing until I figure out what to say about where I am now.

Because where I am now is a town called Hurricane, Utah. To put it in perspective, Los Angeles has over 280 times the number of people that Hurricane does. There's not a chance anyone who follows me on Twitter will be impressed when I show up at Hurricane High School this fall.

To distract myself from the fate I brought on myself I go over and check Justin's Twitter feed. He's posted a picture of Charlotte sleeping with her head on his lap on Instagram and everyone thinks it's the most adorable thing they've ever seen. I wonder how adorable they'll think it is when they find out she's not asleep because watching Justin play video games is boring but because she's having his baby.

"Sarah?" a high-pitched and sickeningly sweet voice calls out. Tammy. I scramble to close Twitter and Instagram before shoving my phone under my pillow. "Sarah, Connie and I could really use your help in the garden."

"Of course," I sit up before Tammy pushes my door open. I've left it open just a crack because that's a rule here too – no closed doors unless you're changing clothes. Or doing the obvious.

"Thank you," Tammy gives me one of fakest smiles I've ever seen. "I just knew you wouldn't be the type to avoid doing hard work."

"I'm happy to help," I say and lead the way out of my room. Tammy doesn't hide the fact that she's looking over my room before she props the door open and follows me. But I'm too smart for her tricks and know she won't find anything to criticize here. It hasn't taken me long to figure out exactly who I can trust (no one) and who I absolutely can't (Tammy).

Almost two weeks ago Justin brought me back to my father's house. Not 24 hours later my father had me load all my stuff into his truck and he started driving me the hour and a half South to Hills Canyon. I knew when I left Justin I would get a new husband but I had no idea it would happen so fast.

Still I wasn't nervous until I recognized the exit for Hills Canyon. There was no way to know what my father would do to me for deciding to leave Justin but I never dreamed he would reassign me to someone from Hills Canyon. I stared out the window of the truck and willed myself not to cry as we pulled into the secretive little community of polygamists.

Hills Canyon is the poorest, most messed up polygamist town I've ever seen. As we drove through the gravel streets a huge cloud of dust swirled around us even though my father was driving painfully slow. I couldn't decide if I wanted him to just get on with it or if I was happier having those last minutes to myself.

When Dad finally stopped the truck we were in front of what might have passed for a house when it was first built. The roof had sunken in and instead of fixing it they'd just covered it with a blue tarp. From the amount of dirt and other crap the tarp had collected I could tell they'd put the tarp up years ago.