Within/Without

prologue.

Val

It occurs to me that I've grown used to being alone.

When it happens, I'm—of course—by myself, getting out of the age-old pickup I've owned since my parents scraped together enough money to buy it for me right after I got my license. The air is crisp, cool; it's September so the wind tastes like fall. There's a purse against my hip, my favorite necklace against my throat, and a number I will likely never call again in my phone.

I slam the car door shut and reach the sidewalk of the townhouse just as another car drives by, momentarily splitting the dark night with bright, lurid white. It's quiet down this street, but somewhere out there, further down the road, Boston is still awake. I can hear it humming.

Each step up the front stoop kills my feet—the heels I wore were a bit too high, but I was feeling risky. You go out on enough dates, you meet enough people, the old ways get tiresome. In a life that's frighteningly stagnant I am still searching for anything novel.

By the time I'm inside and have turned on the coffee machine to make myself a late-night mug, the face of Valerie Love's newest eligible bachelor has already faded into the very back of my memory. That's when it happens. That's when it occurs to me. That empty something in the pit of my stomach I usually feel? That wishfulness for something real, something honest, something worth waiting for? It's gone.

The coffee finishes brewing, and I pour it wordlessly. The house is still around me. Shadows of potted plants against the wall. The lowest whistle of the air conditioning. The slight drip drip dripping of the leaky faucet I've yet to fix.

This is when it happens.

This is when I agree to stop searching, because it's exhausting.

For once I want to let myself be found.

Simon

A lot of people know me without knowing they do, which may be confusing, unless you're me.

Everything in my life I have technically achieved through cheating. My high school diploma. My driver's license. Even my Social Security Number. And it's not exactly my fault. When you have many faces, you have to find some sort of way to accommodate all of them—or the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

When I was little, my family used to think I was sick. They could not understand why their little redheaded boy could wake up with thick black curls the next day or go in the bathroom as a blond Slavic-looking type and come out Korean. My parents read books, spent hours on online forums, watched a thousand documentaries. They were convinced something was wrong with me, until the doctors told them that none of it was possible, and then they were convinced something was wrong with themselves.

I've gotten considerably better at it since then—shapeshifting, I mean. In some ways it's extremely convenient; I am, after all, a natural master of disguise. Rarely did I get in trouble at school, because it was too hard for the administration to keep track of me. I can get as many free samples as I please. And free trials online? Plenty.

You may ask when it is a problem at all, but it wasn't always this easy. It isn't exactly easy now.

So when it is a problem?

Oh, when you're in love.