Page 22 of Exposed

There is a cauldron of emotions within me. Boiling, overflowing, weltering. Violent, virulent. But they are all hidden under a layer of ice created by shock.

I have a name.

A real name.

Isabel Maria de la Vega Navarro?

“Isabel?” Rachel asks. “Is that your name?”

“I suppose so. I don’t know.”

Logan could have just made this up. Picked the names at random. How do I know this is me?

Do I feel like Isabel? I don’t know.

I look at Rachel. “You had a name, before... this. Before you became an apprentice.”

A nod. Eyes downcast. “Yeah. Nicole.” A breath, a sigh, eyes glancing out the window, seeing not the city but the past. “Nicole Martin.”

“And now you’re Rachel?”

Another nod. “Yeah. When I was fifteen, I got picked up by a pimp. He called me Dixie, like Dixie sugar. Because I was sweet, because he always wanted more sugar.” A fake, low, gruff voice, an impression of a male. “‘C’mere, Dixie. Gimme some sugar.’”

“What does that mean? Give me some sugar?”

A smile, quick, amused. “Oh, um... like, well, usually it means to kiss someone, like your grandma would tell you to give her some sugar, and it’d mean give her a kiss.” The smile vanishes. “But for Deon, it meant get on my knees and suck his dick.”

“Oh.” I don’t know what to say.

“So I was Nicole, and then I was Dixie until Caleb found me, and then I was Three.” She brightens. “And now I’m Rachel.”

“How...” I trail off, and try again to formulate my question. “Do you...feellike Rachel? When you think of yourself, who are you?”

A long, long silence. A shrug. “I dunno. I’m still Nicole, in my mind, I guess. There’s no one in the world but you and Caleb that know that name, though.”

“You don’t have a family?”

“Naw. Never had a dad, mom was a druggie, which is how I got hooked myself, watching her use. She OD’d when I was just... shit, twelve? Never had no one else, and I ran off when the city tried to place me.” Rachel is silent, staring at the past via middle distance. “I guess I’m Rachel now. I feel like that name is me. It’s a new me. I can be Rachel, and pretend I never was Nicole or Dixie.”

“I see.”

A sharp, knowing glance at me. “You trying to figure out who you are, ain’tcha? Madame X, or Isabel?”

“I suppose you’re right. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do.”

“In my experience, you have to kind of... convince yourself that you’re someone else. That you really are your new name. You want to be Isabel, you have to think aboutbeingIsabel. Learning to answer to a new name means owning it for yourself, first.”

I don’t know what I want. Who I want to be.

Do I want to be Isabel?

Do I want to be Madame X?

I think of Logan, how he insists that I deserve the right to choose.

But I don’t knowwhatto choose.

I drift away, out of apartment number three, to the elevator, to the lobby. I don’t think I even said good-bye to Rachel, or closed the door behind me.