Chapter 1
Shelby
Every time Shelby Katayama visited her grandfather was a testament to how much she loved him. With her living in a small apartment in Los Angeles, and Roy Kaufman residing in a cozy cabin in Tennessee, any visit required quite a bit of time and effort. If she traveled by plane, she’d arrive there within the day, but she ran the risk of sitting next to someone who failed to understand that headphones meant she didn’t want to talk to anyone, and if she was forced into conversation, she’d arrive stressed, exhausted, and often close to tears. If she drove, she could go at her own pace, and be alone for hours on end, but it took three or four days to get there.
It was worth it to see her Grandpa Roy. He’d understood her need for solitude, because he felt the same way. The two of them could spend the whole day together, fishing on the back porch of his cabin, and enjoy each other’s company regardless of whether they had constant conversation or barely exchanged words. Shelby could tell that nobody else in her family truly understood this about them, convinced that deep down, the two of them craved attention.
It was a crazy sort of misguided condescension that another person believed they knew more about you, despite you living in your own body, with your own personality. It was a double-sided coin as well, one half being bigots who refused to accept any lifestyle other than their own, and the other being people who cared about you who questioned your choices because they didn’t believe you were happy alone, who couldn’t fully comprehend the differences in personalities between them and yourself. Weirdly, the former was easier, because even when you internalize every comment and feel as if you’re constantly being judged, ignoring the opinion of someone who hates you is a much simpler task than ignoring the opinions of those that love you.
She doubted her reasons for desiring solitude were the same as Grandpa Roy’s, but truthfully, she’d never verified this. Perhaps, if she could verbalize her experiences more clearly, she would have in the past. But trying to explain how she felt like a bug under a microscope, being scanned for every flaw and shortcoming by every person she encountered, and how this kept her in a constant state of fear, and by extension, exhaustion, was, ironically, exhausting.
It was why she lived in the city. There were so many services available to deliver food and other essentials to her doorstep, and when she ventured outdoors, she was ignored. In a big city, you just became part of the crowd, with nobody singling you out. It was how her anxiety hadn’t managed to kill her yet. Los Angeles was a melting pot of race and culture, and she’d never felt ostracized because of her demographics. Invisibility was a blessing, and she was grateful for it.
Which was why she was now reeling.
She had just finished a video-conference call with Grandpa Roy’s lawyer about an hour ago, and her mind was a whirlwind of indecision. She’d learned of his death last week, and had only just begun to wrap her head around it by today, the reading of his will. Where she learned he’d left her his cabin and truck in Tennessee.
Shelby was now at the precipice of a Great Life Decision. A Great Life Decision was just like any other choice, except it had a significant impact on the trajectory of your life. Great Life Decisions were things like choosing which college to attend, what career you wanted, the decision to marry, birth or adopt children, divorce, and such.
Moving across the country - or not - fell under this umbrella as well.
This was why her internet browser was chock-full of tabs at present. Until you picked a course of action, Great Life Decisions hovered over you like a thick, oppressive fog. They permeated your thoughts, for better or for worse, and made focusing on anything else more difficult than it already was. And Shelby had felt the crushing weight of stress from the moment she’d ended the call. So she’d done the one thing she’d excelled at - research the crap out of everything.
She’d looked at more trivial things, like the average price of gas and the number and locations of pastry shops. Shelby learned what items were reliably found in various shops around Green Valley - the town next to Bandit Lake, and Grandpa Roy’s cabin - and what she would likely have to order online. The nearest vet’s office was a ten minute drive from the cabin.
But her concerns, and most of her searches, had been dominated by the most important details. How far from the cabin the police and fire stations were. Crime rates at Bandit Lake and in Green Valley. Any incidences of racially-motivated attacks. Diversity statistics for the area.
Shelby had already done such a deep dive into Bandit Lake and the surrounding area that by the time she made a decision, it would probably be the most well-informed one of human history. She’d learn practically everything to know about the region, and she’d be able to make a good, well informed choice.
Two days later, Shelby had read pretty much every bit of information the internet had provided regarding Bandit Lake and Green Valley. She’d actually learned quite a bit of interesting trivia, including that the cabins at Bandit Lake couldn’t actually be sold - a fact that she’d somehow never learned with her many childhood trips to visit her grandparents. Also gleaned on her search were the menu at Donner Bakery, an extensive history of Payton Mill, and knowledge of the pregnancy of a woman named Jennifer Winston.
The Winstons were minor celebrities in Green Valley, a large group of siblings who had become popular in the town for their looks and varying degrees of charm. At present, they were all partnered up, some of them with major celebrities, like Sienna Diaz and Claire McClure. And Shelly Sullivan, who had a more specific and niche sort of fame, especially if one hadn’t seen any of her work. Shelby had memorized her name after a trip to a museum in LA, where she had spent quite a lengthy period of time studying one of her sculptures, and had been surprised to learn that Shelly lived in the same area as Grandpa Roy had. She’d thought it would have been difficult, transporting large sculptures from a small town in Tennessee to destinations all over the world, but it seemed Shelly had done it.
However, what had really made her pause was a portrait of the family from a couple years back - which she’d found on the same blog as most of the other Winston knowledge, written by a woman named Marnie, that had been so spunky and charming Shelby had bookmarked it to her browser - that featured all of the siblings, their partners, and their children. She had noticed Sienna Diaz and her husband, Jethro, keeping their kids still for the photo. Another brother, taller and with dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard, had his arm wrapped lovingly around a shorter black woman. The pair, Roscoe Winston and Simone Payton, were gazing at each other adoringly, and Shelby felt something in her chest squeeze.
The Paytons, one of the most prominent families in Green Valley, were black. Within the Winston family alone, there were two interracial couples, and some mixed-race children. And the entire family seemed to care deeply for each other, no couple segregated by animosity.
Hate lingered everywhere, as Shelby was all too familiar with, but it could be held back with strong examples of acceptance, and two prominent relationships would make it more difficult for hate to fester in Green Valley. Not impossible - definitely not - but undeniably more difficult.
Shelby glanced over at Bucky, her pet ball python, in his tank, where he was currently curled around his favorite branch. His tank could fit in her car, but it would take up the entirety of her back seats. As long as she fed him before a trip, he wouldn’t need to eat while traveling. Maintaining temperature in the tank would be difficult, but she trusted her generator, and could rig a system with hot pads as well.
The faint sound of a siren permeated the glass of her closed window, and Shelby tensed. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to breathe, slowly and deeply, in an attempt to keep herself calm. It never worked well, her frantic heartbeat refusing to slow and her hands shaking like miniature earthquakes. Like always, she prayed that the vehicle wouldn’t come near her building, that whatever emergency was somewhere far away from here.
She froze as the siren grew louder, unable to move a muscle as she stood rooted to the floor. Even her lungs had ceased to work, her throat swelling painfully shut as the edges of her vision grew hazy. As seconds ticked by with excruciating slowness, her body swayed slightly as colors started to turn grey, and the sound of her own heartbeat swelled in her ears.
Moments from fainting, the sound of the siren began to dim. Within moments, it had faded into the eccentric oblivion of the city. Legs giving out from relief, her knees hit the ground hard. Curled up, hands braced against the floor, she trembled as struggled to regain her equilibrium.
When Shelby had escaped to LA, she’d chosen the city for its diversity, desperately needing a place where she could be invisible. It wasn’t until she had moved into her apartment that she realized she hadn’t escaped after all. After the first panic attack, she had adapted, investing in panels of the best soundproofing, and making her place livable. Every inch of her apartment walls were covered in insulation, but the doors and windows were unadorned, and on quiet moments inside, the sounds could still wriggle their way into her home.
Like now.
When her heart rate and breathing had returned to normal, Shelby rocked back so she was sitting on the cold tile floor of her kitchen. She’d made living in LA work for her, relishing her invisibility, but the noise was slowly starting to kill her. Grandpa Roy’s cabin was quiet, peaceful, and if Marnie’s blog was to be trusted - as she suspected it was - Green Valley may be more accepting than she thought.
It looked like Shelby was moving to Tennessee.
