40:PM

Tess felt rather certain that she would die alone. She blamed her arms, which she found to be fatter than normal arms. She blamed her poor body image, which she couldn’t seem to shake, even as she got older and found that the girls around her had turned into women, had gotten pregnant and lost their shapes entirely. She took too many pictures of herself and scrutinized them for flaws, and then made copies of the prints and taped them on telephone poles across town with her phone number printed clearly across them.

People called from all over, mostly men, asking about the girl in the photograph. Tess told them, That girl is a runaway, and if you find her, try to keep her in one place and secretly phone the police.

The men said, She looks a little old for a runaway.

Tess said, She’s disturbed.

When she went out, Tess was much bolder than usual. She wore sleeveless shirts and made eye contact with the boys at the check-out counter. In the library, she sat at a center table and held her face to the light as she read. Whenever anyone approached her to ask if she had been helped, or if she had read other books by that author, she gathered her things and ran. Nobody could ever see what she was running from.