Computer Lover

The way it goes: I sit alone in our kitchen, staring at the computer, pushing buttons and rolling the
mouse wheel until it feels like a person’s skin beneath my fingertip. Mom and Dad roll over in their bed
nearby. I feel the echo of their pulses in mine, telling meI could get grounded for this. Around me, the
blue glow of the computer screen turns the tiled floor a sickly shade of midnight. I’m up past my
bedtime, using the computer for the millionth night in a row.
Outside, the snakes are awake, stretching through the prairie grass for a late night snack. I sit
with my legs dangling off the chair in the hexagon kitchen, fingers hovering over the keyboard, waiting
for something to snatch me.
I’ve been logging onto the family computer every night since Dad bought me Firehouse Dog
from the $4 DVD barrel at Best Buy. By day, I watch the movie on repeat. By night, I scroll through
josh-hutcherson.com, zooming in on headshots of him until I can count his eyelashes and the threads
of his cotton t-shirt necklines. The dog is the only one who’s always onto me, brushing her cold wet
nose against the back of my calf to remind me she’s there. She keeps me grounded to this reality—
Panhandle Texas, fifth grade tomorrow, remedial reading and cardboard lunches.
But I don’t care. I’m with Josh. The best days are the ones where there’s a photo that’s new. I
treasure the candids: Josh and his mom leaving the grocery store, Josh and the Irish Terrier from a film
set, Josh holding up a big bucket of KFC chicken. Celebrities—they’re just like you! Mom’s toilet seat
magazines tell me. I’m not stupid. I know what celebrities are like, rich and smoking like ants beneath
the pop bulb glass of paparazzi photos. But for Josh, it’s true. A Kentucky boy. A little terrier. School
between movie shoots. He is just like me.
Dad’s snores tear through the door, down the hall, and over to me, a handful of feet away. My
parents are restless sleepers. I time my mouse movements with Dad’s breaths. I’m not sure if I’d get in
more trouble for being on the computer past my bedtime or for dreaming about a boy. Dad worries I’ll
get into porn or drugs on the internet. All men are sick dogs, he tells me. They only have one brain, and
it’s not in their skull.
Yeah, yeah, I tell him, unsure of what he wants that to mean.
But Josh isn’t like other boys. Under the pixels of the screen, his freckles kiss the skin of his
cheeks the way rain does: divinely and without discrimination. His soft shaggy hair hangs down, over
his hazel eyes and flush lips. The corners of his jaw angle towards his chin like the bottom tip of a heart.
He has a face carved by angels. I think, It’s no wonder he got famous with a face like that.
In three years time, when I’m thirteen and my best friend Mikayla is telling me she’s gay across the
clay-dusted table in art class, I will zoom in on her freckles this same way. It will be at this moment that
I’ll realize Josh Hutcherson and Mikayla Mason have the same face. She’ll ask, What about you? Even
though she’s the first queer girl I’ve ever known, I’ll tell her that I’m not gay back, but I’m happy for
her and that beautiful, divinely freckled-face. She will be the first gay person I know and love in Texas,
or anywhere. Other than myself, of course, but the girl in this story doesn’t know anything about that.
Josh is 1,626 days older than me. He accepts mail at P.O. box 2387 in San Clarita, California, where I
have sent him approximately one thickly-layered letter and wait to hear back. My heart is patient in this
waiting. I have seen every movie Josh has been in since The Polar Express with the scary Tom Hanks
animation. I’ve cried watching every film, especially the one where the girl drowns in the riverbed. Josh
is always falling in love in these movies, but it’s never real. It’s acting. He’s an actor. One who will
touch your soul, at that. One who will reach through the screen and hold hands with your heart.
One who, eventually, is going to take me far away from here.
Sometimes, I type KENTUCKY US MAP into Google Images. It’s a state shaped like a fish-reptile
creature lying on its stomach, tucked inside other states I’ve never heard of. I try to memorize its place.
I think about looking up plane tickets, but I’m old enough to know that my family can’t afford all that.
One day, I’ll meet Josh’s whole family at Thanksgiving on his grandmother’s cottage-wreathed
porch, where he will propose as the sky blushes cotton candy pink behind us, shocking me and
everyone. His mom will dab tears from the corner of her eyes using the sleeve of her blouse. Her
mascara will not smudge. I’ll be a better person by then. I’ll never have to be alone again.
Sometimes, I consider writing him another letter for good measure. What if my last one got
lost, or buried under a fangirl avalanche, or thrown out by mistake? I veto the wish before it’s even
finished forming in my brain. The only thing worse than being imperfect is being desperate. I think, If
he just knew me.
What I want is to disappear into my future, to be someone and somewhere else already. I want to live
inside the flat landscape of the computer screen. I could walk through it like a glowing tomorrow,
bodiless and shame-free.
I keep scrolling on the computer until my eyes burn inside my skull, the clock reads 2:17am,
and I feel in my pumping patient heart that Josh must be thinking of me back. Then, I push the red X
in the corner of the screen. A massive snore disgorges from Dad’s bedroom, making me freeze. I wait
four heartbeats before even thinking of moving again. Carefully, I hold my finger against the silver
DELL button until the panting computer gasps, goes silent. I dip my Oreo’s wrapper in the trash,
making sure it’s hidden under the box of something else. I’ve gotten in trouble for this—filling up my
body. I can’t be caught needing more than I’m allowed to need.
I uncrack Mom and Dad’s door, where the dog settles back inside. Then I ninja tip-toeing my
way across the lonely house the way Dad taught me—heel, outer foot edge, toe. It’s the way Bruce Lee
walks, never being seen or heard. I make it to my room without ever being noticed at all. There, I crawl
into bed, where the warmth of Josh’s ghost envelopes me.

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