I find the package on our splintered, leaning front porch, tossed there by the delivery driver. It feels too light for its price. I shrug and carry it up to my attic room, unlocking the door's padlock, a necessary defense since Mom stole my cash. Now, I pay her fifty bucks a week for utilities. I don't get mad anymore. My mom has mental health problems and her boyfriend of ten years, Paul, is a beaten-down dog. He's changed from the hotshot motorcycle rider he once was. Now, his liver is failing from years of pills and booze, such a typical Drury resident.

 

It's almost spring here in Michigan and my room is freezing. I crank up my space heater and toss my package onto my card table. Paul's renovation of my attic room means it's never quite right. Barely any heat reaches me, but I tough it out. My sanctuary, my room, is filled with garage sale finds and roadside discards. With its old twin bed and Papasan chair covered in Mexican blankets, plus my salt lamp, this place helps me dream of the beach. That's where I want to be. For five years since high school, I've mostly stayed here, avoiding the rest of the house. But I can't escape the one-bathroom problem, the small, cramped space I share with Mom and Paul. Paul always leaves the door cracked when he's on the toilet, but I never say anything. The more I'm a ghost, the easier it will be to leave.

 

Aunt Louise has faith I'll get out of here, even though I failed the dental hygiene program. She's offered to pay for beauty school, but I can't accept; she's broke and has cancer. Everyone else—my bestie Gina, Mom, Paul—still thinks dental hygiene was my only shot. They constantly push jobs at Wingman RV or the casino. I refuse those jobs. I'm not going to just exist my whole life, dragging myself out of bed for a life that isn't mine.

 

And yeah, that's what this package is all about. It's a box of ILLUMINE cosmetics. Livia Light, the famous manifestation coach, is the CEO. Yeah, I'm a little obsessed with Livia. I know she's just an influencer, but she gives me hope. I tune into her podcast every Tuesday, taking notes. She teaches us to be our best selves, making me unashamed of wanting something different. Livia started just like me: Midwest-born, broke, scrappy. Now, she's rich, glowing, running an empire. If she can do it, why can't I? This box, bought on a credit card with a 22% interest rate and barely any credit left, is my ticket out. And my last chance.

 

I sit down and open it. The tissue paper crinkles, revealing little tubes. The ILLUMINE starter kit costs $395 and includes 30 tubes of Mood Gloss, motivational stickers, and a sales journal. The gloss costs ten dollars wholesale, but some women sell it for $35. Selling just four tubes would make what takes a whole day of cleaning or two shifts at HotFoods. That's the kind of math I can get behind. As "Light Keepers," we're told we're selling "transformation" and "energy" with "vortexed" ingredients, adaptive and mood-matching. Livia teaches us: "This isn't just gloss, Light Keepers. It's transformation. It's proof. You deserve to glow. You deserve more." I believe her.

 

I put on the gloss. It feels gooey. I wait for the color to change. Nothing happens. Then suddenly my lips look like I rubbed them with pink chalk. There is nothing transformative about this shade. The only thing it is is cheap-looking. In fact, it's the same generic pink my mom painted on my cheeks for my age-three Kmart Portrait Studio photo. In that photo, with my bowl-cut bangs and denim jumper, the blush was supposed to make me look healthy and happy. Instead, it just made me look like a little plastic baby doll. That photo still hangs in our hallway. Sick to my stomach, I check the Welcome Packet, scanning the commission breakdowns, and see a tiny asterisk:  "Earnings potential is based on individual effort, market conditions, and brand expansion. Illumine Inc. does not guarantee income or financial success". I fold the packet, put everything back in the box, and shut it away.

 

Alone, completely alone, I feel it. I feel the panic coming in. 

"What did you do, Lacie?" I rub my forehead. The heat rises in my body, rushing through me as if I'm on fire. Sweat seeps above my lip, in my bra, my socks, even my underwear. My cheeks burn. The panic. Here it comes. I take off my dirty HotFoods uniform and crawl into bed. My heart races, my hands sweat. I feel like I'm here, but not really here, like I'm going to lose my mind—just like my mother. Am I just like my mother?

"Stop it, Lacie. Stop it," I tell myself and lay flat on my back, in corpse pose, practicing my breathing.

 

I want to call Aunt Louise; she usually talks me down. But I have to get on top of this by myself because I won't be able to call her when there's a three-hour time difference. I have this crazy dream of California, a cliché, I know, but I want it. I want out. If I don't leave soon, I'll watch my mom decay, then I won't be able to leave her. I'll be stuck, sinking into this house that's falling apart. Some days, my bedroom walls feel like the only thing keeping me from being swallowed whole.

 

I close my eyes and begin my visualization, or "astral projection," a technique from Livia's podcast. I float, weightless, slipping out of my body. I hover above my bed, then drift higher, through the roof, into the sky, settling onto the thick branch of the old oak tree over our house. From there, I see everything: the cemetery, the silent radio tower blinking, streets tangling into a knot. I climb higher, unafraid. Drury spreads out beneath me—small houses, dim living rooms, bodies sinking into couches, eating chips and cookies. They're there but not there, tuned into something to tune out of everything else.

 

Then, I lift off. I push past the town, the fields, the highways of the Midwest. I fly over tired farmers, factory workers, exhausted waitresses—all gripping their phones, scrolling in their dark houses as a cold rain pours, filling potholes and emptied swimming pools. I kept going, over mountains and through the desert. The air is dry, and I see the sun, feeling its warmth after so long. I could stop there, but I need to go where the dreamers live: by the ocean, under the big white letters, where movie stars roam and lost angels wander, where there is no shame in wanting more.

 

Finally, I'm there. The Pacific Ocean. I see the waves rolling toward sand, toward Malibu and Santa Monica. I see palm trees and oranges and start zooming in, looking for her. Over there by the canals of Venice Beach, in a flat-roofed condo with year-round flowers! There she is! Right by the beach sits Livia Light. She's so beautiful with flame-red hair and silk robes, propped up on pillows in a garden. She's concentrating hard, like she knows I'm here. I think she's trying to tell me something that can only travel through this magical ether, as she calls it. I focus, straining to tune in. I hear something, barely detectable, faint. A car? A jingle?

 

Yes. I sit up in bed. It's Paul. 

I hear his keys as he tosses them onto the kitchen table, then the thud of his six-pack shoved into the fridge. I hear the tink of the bottle cap as he walks down the hallway, passing my Kmart photo, still hanging there. 

 

I see me. There I am, little me, with her fake rosy cheeks and tiny bunny teeth. She's still there. Still hanging on. Hands folded politely. Still waiting for her turn.