Part 3: Rebirth

Unsure of where it was that she was truly going, Jo continued to ride. Down University Centre Drive, through Westridge without giving a second for herself to breathe. Anywhere was better than where she was before. Turning at Martin Hollow, she could feel her eyes becoming sore from being awake for so long but she simply pushed away the feeling and kept her legs moving. Eventually she reached Fairmont and her legs began to give out. Unable to pedal any more, she stepped off Annie’s bike. Abandoning it in a bush beside the road, she began to walk. For two hours, she wandered without any purpose. Eventually, a bus stop came into view about twenty minutes later and Jo sat upon the old wooden bench allowing her eyes to close. This is the same kind of bench they had at the carnival. I wonder if they still have those here?

She was jolted awake when a set of white headlights bathed her face in abrupt light. Looking up, she was met by the green and blue bus which was now pulling alongside the stop. As the sky began to darken, she stepped through the door and handed the driver the fee of twenty dollars. When he said that she was good to go, Jo nodded before stumbling into the seat facing the window away from the driver. When she had settled, the bus began to rumble down the road once again. After a few minutes of trying to get comfortable, her hand wandered to her butterfly tote bag. Everything seemed in order until Jo felt something surprisingly heavy beside her phone. Curious, she allowed her hand to wander into the canvas and produce a book from within its folds. Where did this come from? No. No no no I didn’t buy this

In the darkened light of night it was hard to read but, after a moment of hard squinting, she could make out the title: The Life of  Ms. Jocelyn M. Thatcher which she had been reading at Barnes and Noble. Her head hit the metal bar just past the back of the seat. Not only am I out of my own life but now I’m a thief. 

Lifting her head once more, left hand rubbing the slight bruise on the back of it, she slowly opened the cover. Whether it was out of morbid curiosity or out of boredom, she began to read again from where she had stopped, the coffee stain on page four serving as an unconventional book mark. It wasn’t a particularly long book written with short chapters with the longest being ten pages. Jo read the whole story within only a couple hours. It is easy to read a book fast when you know what is always coming next. A few times she laughed, a couple times she could feel tears beginning to well without ever falling, but most of that time she was silent. When the back cover had been closed, her head hit the seat once more, softer this time. Shut eyes began to cry, tears of the tension of the day being suddenly released as her head nodded in rhythm with the bus.

Shaking broke Jo’s forced slumber. She opened her eyes, blinked a couple of times, and was met by the blurry visage of a man in a uniform who looked just as tired as she felt. Only then she noticed that her glasses had fallen off. Feeling around her seat, the driver held up his hand with the thin rimmed spectacles between his arthritis ridden fingers. As she took her glasses, he said something that sounded like fuzz in her ears. Trying to fully wake herself up, she looked up at him. “What?” 

He swallowed and tried once more in a voice that had been carefully molded by cigarettes and bourbon. “You can’t stay on here, hun. This is as far as I am legally allowed to go.” 

Jo slowly began to stand, the seat and the man’s hand both being used as light crutches. “Where are we?” 

The man looked out the window, gray eyes distractedly scanning the skyline. “Charlotte, North Carolina, Westerly Hills area. It's my last stop before I head back to Pittsburgh in the morning. Honey, could I get you off? I need rest just as much as you do sweet heart.” 

She nodded and stepped onto the cement, still bleary eyed. In the near distance she saw a sign that read ‘Sheraton’- a name that she had seen attached to a couple hotels in Virginia. Book in hand, groggy, and stumbling like a drunk, Jo began to hobble towards the dazzling lights of the hotel sign. The girl at the counter, Lily, was understanding of her situation and even gave her a discount on her room because she said that “It’s the off season, we have plenty of rooms, and you look horrible.” 

Jo thanked her and fought her failing legs in the elevator to the second floor. She came to room 216 and, before the door could even properly close behind her, she passed out on the single bed in the center of the room like a sack of sand thrown onto a rock.

Morning broke upon the back of the tomorrow, urging Jo from her seemingly deep slumber with a strategically placed beam of light. Head buzzing from a hangover that was not even there, she wrestled with the sheets before eventually freeing herself from the silky clutches. After a moment spent sitting on the bed staring at the wall contemplating her existence, she began to actually think for the first time today. What she thought was: I smell like s**t. 

Acting upon this singularity of a thought, she puppetted her still tired body to the bathroom and out of her clothes. Standing under the imposing gaze of the cheap hotel soap bolted to the wall and the blindingly white tiles, she absentmindedly pulled the equally bright shower curtain closed. A single, drooping hand turned the lightly rusted knob above the faucet. The water dripped for a second before beginning to pour, a light waterfall onto her down turned head. It was warmer than Jo had expected but she hadn’t the energy to complain. Instead, she simply let the steaming water flow over every curve, crevice, and fold that constructed the body of Jocelyn. At this moment it felt that her body was barely hers. That perhaps her rent of the skin on her back was overdue. Maybe I stole that too.

Eventually, she decided that that was enough showering for her, the same drooping hand, now slightly more energetic, turned the handle once more, reducing the water to a drip then to nothing. Once she exited into the miniature cloud beyond the curtain, she dried off. Fumbling with her foggy glasses, she began to contemplate the single pair of clothes to her name. Before she could attempt to peel them on, her gaze was drawn to the ground just outside the door. There lay the book in a position that held it open on its side as if it were beckoning her to read it once more. Instead of answering its call, she simply looked upon it with a viscous disdain.

Looking back to the clothes, she kicked them aside, wrapped the towel around her body, and padded over to the vanity mirror. Leaning in so that she didn’t need her glasses to see, Jo went over every detail of her makeup free face. Again, with disdain. A disgust that one only ever reserved for themselves. Leaning away from the mirror, Jo surveyed the hotel room for the first time since her late night arrival. Then suddenly, an idea came into her mind. She quickly began to parse through drawers and the bathroom. Unable to find the perfect tool, it was the desk phone which she grabbed. For a moment it rang, then was picked up. “Hello? Is this the front desk? Hi, yes I'm in room…” Jo looked at the key card on her bed. “217 no, sorry,”

She squinted at the card. “216. Yes. Yes. What do I need? Hey, strange question, but uh… do you have scissors?” 

Jo waited a second for the rustling and rummaging on the other side of the line to stop. “You do? Great! Do you think I could borrow them for a little…What? No, I’m not going to kill myself, who do you think I am… Oh, it happened before? Sorry I just… I have some uh- medication I need to open and uh… no it's a bit too… a bit too embarrassing to bring down, you know… What do you mean “no”. Fine. You know what then? I will buy them from you… Ten dollars?” 

That's quite steep. Whatever, beggars can't be choosers. 

“Sounds fine, thanks. Be down in just a minute.” 

Jo forced herself back into her clothes, doing her best to look alive before stepping into the elevator. A moment passed and the tone of an electronic bell told her that she had arrived at the first floor. Stepping into the lobby, she advanced towards the front desk. The worker had changed from the night prior and Lily was replaced by a rather stout man who looked like how you would imagine a drill sergeant would. A couple minutes of mild extortion later, Jo walked away with scissors and the man who wore a name tag that read ‘Brett’ stood at his post, twenty dollars richer with a smug smile painted across his face that Jo dared not to look directly at. 

Hair fell like ash as Jo burned her identity. As she cut away a defining part of the person she once was. Lots of other girls had long brown hair but for her it had always been her way of expression. During the pigtail phase in second grade through her emo phase when she dyed it black, it had always been the first thing that she would change. Every time, she had told herself that it would grow back so that, one day in the future, it would be changed once more. However, this time, she was going to make sure it would take longer for it to grow back. Maybe then she will be who she truly should be. She had seen people cut hair in a mirror before. It happens all the time in movies and books. Her mother had done it to her for years but it never occurred to her how damn difficult it really was to do it upon yourself. She would cut a strand and then the rest, but the part she just cut, would be shorter than the strand from earlier. Bangs and locks littered the bathroom floor when she had finished hacking away at the light brown strands of identity. Jo stepped back from the mirror to examine the work of her hands. They say that hair is the holder of memories. This appeared to be true given her inability to remember what her hair had looked like before she struck it down. The product was a semi- lopsided haircut that would have been more suitable for a young man. Her somewhat straight hair had the habit of curling up when shortened. This only served to amplify the difference. Jo wiped her hand through her hair and the image of what it had been minutes before flooded her mind. She began to cry as she cleaned up the scraps, determined to not leave the bathroom as sad a state as she was. 

After the bathroom was as clean as it was going to get, she returned to the bed only to be met by the pile of clothes on the floor. At first, she was filled with annoyance at the fact that she didn’t bring clothes to change into but, then again, she didn’t exactly have a plan besides leaving. Even that was a decision stemming out of a half baked midnight thought and a sleep deprived panic. With a sigh, she stuffed herself back into the sweat soaked clothes. 

The stale Cosmere t-shirt clung to her skin like velcro and her jean shorts like tape. Ignoring the awkward feeling of missing all of her hair and moving in stiff clothes, she began to pace around the room trying to figure out a plan. Any plan for anything. Instinctually, Jo tried once or twice to check her phone before she remembered it was dead. 

I need clothes and a charger. We can work with that. 

She checked her wallet and found that her cash was beginning to grow thin. Maybe there is a thrift store or something nearby. That is about all I could probably afford right now.

 

After several minutes of thinking followed by rethinking Jo finally decided to leave the hotel room. She reached the elevator then realized that the hotel didn’t serve breakfast. Mulling over this fact, she was in the lobby once more. Careful timing allowed her to run across the front desk without notifying Brett what it was she actually did with his scissors. Soon she stepped into the overcast day beyond the glass sliding doors. After “Ok,” Jo spoke only to herself, “Charger.” 

Across the street stood a Shell gas station in which she spent way too long finding a charger that fit her phone. Along with the charger she also picked up a cheap flashlight, bag of potato chips and a large bottle of water. Ten dollars poorer, she left in the search of the last item on her list: something else to wear.

Goodwill: A store where one man's trash is another's treasure. A short walk down a side road and across Wilkinson from a car dealership, stood one such building. Famous for typically having a great selection of clothes, cheaper prices, and a hit or miss quality, Jo figured that this was as good a place as any to rid herself of the rest of her identity. Although the large building was full of people, not a single person spared a second glance as she walked in. It was refreshing for her to be anonymous once again. It was normal and normal was exactly what she needed. However, normal was not about to be what she found. Racks on racks of clothes stared her in the eye as Jo approached the women's clothing section. Minutes turned into an hour as she tried on everything that looked like it would remotely fit her. However, despite having what was considered to be a completely average body type, Jo was having a surprisingly hard time finding anything close to average. Five t-shirts each of varying size and yet all were too small in one way or another. For some reason, only known to God himself, there was a single pair of jeans. Among several racks of shirts there was but one pair of pants. She congratulated whoever owned them before because they had lost, by Jo's guess, 600 pounds; or died, likely the latter. The only saving grace was that a pair of blue workout shorts happened to be only slightly too small meaning they could stretch to fit her. When another hour had passed she was left with only two options. These were to either: deal with the clothes that she wore now, besides the jean shorts, or to wear a bright pink prom dress that looked like it was from the eighties. Needless to say the dress was rather comfortable and went well enough with the oversized Carhartt sweatshirt that she purchased alongside it because, after only a minute of wearing the dress, it was going to be far too cold otherwise. Another benefit of thrifting was that the whole outfit only was twenty dollars. For that, her wallet thanked her. 

Outside the store, around a corner of the building between the entrance and the loading dock, she quickly changed into her new and comfortable clothes. Admiring herself in the mirror of her dead phone she found that, once the strangeness of the outfit had passed, she didn't look too bad. Oh, who was she kidding. The outfit was hideous but it beat stale clothing by a mile and so she accepted it with dignified silence and grace.

“This sucks! Ok. There, it's out of my system. Let's go.” 

Shoving her little mirror into the large pocket on the front of her sweatshirt, she began to walk back around the building. Shortly after the Sanderson t-shirt and jean shorts were tossed into the donation dumpster, Jo decided that now was as good a time as any to return to the hotel. 

Jo walked back into the lobby with the intent to make it back to her room without anyone seeing her, much like when she had left. However, her silent rush for the elevator was cut jarringly short by a voice emanating from the front desk. “Nice hairdo, Ms. Thatcher.” 

She shut her eyes. 

Brett. Of course.

Her heart skipped a beat as she turned to face the densely packed man behind the desk. In his hands he held a book. Brett placed the book onto the desk and turned it to face her as she approached. “What do you want, Brett?” 

With one finger he tapped the book. “Found this in your room.” 

She looked down upon it. “You stole my book!” Jo put one hurried hand on it.

“Oh, feel free to take it, but that doesn't change the fact that I know who you are. Now, I haven't read the books and frankly I don't really care to. Honestly, romance always kind of disgusted me. But, what I am very well aware of is the fact that you are a very popular character.” 

Jo began to sweat. “How did you-” 

“Know? I'm not an idiot, princess. You registered under your name. Your… whole name. Must’ve been a long night if something like that slipped your mind.” Brett underlined the title of the book with his finger, “I'm going to assume you can read, can you tell me what that says, Jocelyn?” 

Jo looked at his finger with contempt and took the book in both hands.“What are you going to do?” 

Brett gained a smug grin that made Jo wish she could kill him. He laughed, flashing his yellowing teeth in the  “Oh, nothing…for a price, of course.”

“And that is…?” 

Brett stopped for a second, introspective look plastered on his features. Then the smile returned. “You know, a good time doesn’t sound so bad, now does it? What do ya say, princess.” 

Jo felt the disgust ooze across her face. “Are you kidding? Hell no. I’m leaving.” 

As she began to walk away, his voice called her to a stand still once again. “However, I happen to have a friend at the local news station and I can assume that there would be a great deal of people who would be eager to meet the great Jocelyn M. Thatcher. If I don’t get what I want, I might just…” 

He held up his hand to his ear mimicking a phone. With every gesture of his hands, she tightened her own around the book. “Come to think of it, I could probably make a lot out of this news thing anyway.” 

Jo back pedalled, now facing the shorter man head on. Brett leaned forward onto the desk, pushing his obnoxiously flat nose in her face, “Convince me why I shouldn't call them right now, princess.” 

As calmly as she could, Jo gripped the sides of the volume all while staring Brett in the eye. With all the cool contained within her soul, she leaned forward in the same manner so that she was only an inch away from his face. Her lips, dripping seductive malice, she whispered into his ear. “After this, we can do the rest.” 

She could feel his temperature begin to rise only inches away from her face. Pulling her head back to the front of his, she held tight to the book as adrenaline began to flow through her veins. His expression of cunning shifted suddenly for that of bewilderment as her lips touched his. Unsure of what else to do, he closed his eyes. This was his first kiss after all and why shouldn't he enjoy it. She even promised more after! I wonder- 

This enjoyment was quickly put to a halt by a sharp and jolting pain traveling through his skull before the sweet bliss of unconscious sleep overcame him. Jo stood watching Brett slump over the desk, breathless. She looked at her shaking hands and the book that they held. On the front, just across the title, was the slightest dash of blood. Probably from where the hard cover cut his lip. Not wishing to waste a moment or risk being caught in the act, she ran out of the hotel. 

The chill of the early evening felt like a slap to the face as she ran, but it was fear that refused her to be cold. Jo pulled her hood over her head as it began to rain. Despite the rain being warm, she began to shiver as she began to run out of adrenaline. Street lights passed overhead, illuminating her faults and the water that fell upon them. Once her heart had slowed, her stomach began to growl in protest at being neglected. Her once bowed head observed the area in which she walked. Damp streets glimmering with the signs that constructed downtown Charlotte. Groups of people stumbling into and out of bars. The night life. A life which Jo had never lived before. Fear of rejection had kept her away. Despite all of the laughing and music, it was the McDonald's on the corner that called her name. The cashier, whose eye bags were likely just as dark as hers, handed her a paper bag containing a squished Big Mac, and a handful of lukewarm fries. As her phone charged at a snail's pace at the only outlet in the whole place, she examined the food with a grim acceptance. Jo had never really cared for McDonald's but, when you haven't eaten since you can remember, it would certainly beat starving to death. In the middle of a bite into the center of the burger her phone buzzed to life. After what felt like an hour of the start screen, her phone turned on. 

My parents must be worried sick, maybe Phil called me…maybe I- 

Nothing. Not a single message or call or anything. Her lock screen was as barren as the Sahara, only an old photo of a polaroid showing her and Phil in their highschool graduation robes greeted her. Their smiles taunted her so Jo shut it off. She could not bear looking at it and instead laid her head on the table. Feeling sick, she stood up and discarded the half eaten burger. Absent-mindedly, she took to the street again. The rain had stopped and the only reminder of it were the puddles under her feet. Fatigued and feeling faint, she stumbled into a hidden away alley somewhere between a tattoo parlor and a church. After leaning against the brick wall of the tattoo parlor, she eventually gathered herself into a small pile by a dumpster and finally passed out underneath the light polluted stars.

When she awoke once more the sun had still not arisen.   It was to the obnoxious buzz of a notification that she opened her eyes. The curse of a light sleeper. After a minute of trying to believe that she was a real human, Jo reached for her tote bag. When she eventually found her phone it was lit up by the polaroid once more. After she got past the initial blindness induced by the bright lock screen, Jo could make out the words: ‘For you: Breaking News! Violent Celebrity Spotted In Charlotte, North Carolina.’ Her heart jumped into her throat. 

I swear, if this is what I think it is. 

One tap, and a couple of wrong passwords later, her worst fears were confirmed. 

He wasn’t bluffing. Brett may be a creep but at least that son of a b***h isn’t a liar.

Madison jumped awake to the sound of her ringtone on the nightstand. I hate being a light sleeper. 

Heavy handed, she answered the call. “Hmmmph?” 

The sound of those ripped from deep slumber. 

“Madison? Are you alive? If not, you're gonna want to be.” 

Harper’s surprisingly energetic voice broke the silence of night. She winced at the noise and turned to the clock at the bedside: 4:00 a.m. Madison rubbed her eyes “Yes, I’m here. What do you want?” 

She could hear him typing on a keyboard for a second before responding. 

“I have emailed you an article.” 

She could almost taste his excitement. “Can it wait? It's four in the morning. How did you get my email?” 

“No. This is important. Your email was online. Just look at it as soon as you can.” 

Despite the absurdity of his request, his tone was set. Madison groaned and reached for her laptop beside her bed. “Eugh. Fine. I’ll call you back when I’ve read it. It might take a minute though. I'm still not sure if I’m alive.” 

She hung up on him before turning on the desk lamp beside her. Setting the computer on the blankets, Madison puzzled at why Harper would send her a news article and be so eager for her to read it that he couldn’t even wait till morning. This confusion subsisted until five seconds later when she got past the strange headline. The article itself was very obviously a rush job written by someone too excited to get it out and get paid but it articulated its point well enough to tell her exactly what he had wanted her to know. 

Harper’s phone buzzed in his hand only a couple minutes after she had hung up. Excitedly he picked up to be greeted with a significantly more perky voice on the other side. “How fast can you get to North Carolina?” 

He smiled and clicked ‘order’ on a ticket for a direct flight and a rental car. “Consider me already there.” 

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Breaking News! Violent Celebrity Spotted In Charlotte, North Carolina.

 By Hudson James, CNN

 2 minute read - Published 3:03 AM EDT, Sun July 7, 2024

Just yesterday a young clerk, at the local Sheraton in Charlotte NC, was assaulted by a celebrity for doing his job.

Brett Harris, 23, was found with a baseball sized bruise on his head and a cut upper lip. His testimony was taken on sight by Police Chief D. Brando following the bizarre 911 call.

“She was staying at the hotel the previous night and went out unnoticed this morning. I did my duty for the day but while I was cleaning her room I found suspicious objects. When she returned I confronted her about it and she hit me with a hardcover book.” Said Harris during the first aid procedure. 

The celebrity in question was identified by Brett as Jocelyn Marie Thatcher. Known for her fame from the New York Times bestselling series: “Love, Jo” by author Madison Wood, Jocelyn has been making a splash in modern culture with only two books out and one more on the way. Despite police hesitation to believe the fictional character of Thatcher was responsible for this act Harrison stands by his words. 

As of now, tracking efforts for the runaway suspect have been going steady with no major developments. Police have issued the following description as a way of identification:

Female (22)

Medium to tall height

Skinnier build

Short and extremely curly boyish light brown hair

Wearing a pink dress, a faded brown sweatshirt, and glasses 

Carrying a tote bag

If spotted in your area: call the non-emergency 911 number or contact your local police department.

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