aliens? they're out there!

Digging Deeper.

kneeling in the second to past pew in church, two girls dressed identically in their sunday best pass notes and muffle their laughter behind used prayer books, turning the steady drone of the priest’s sermon into a background melody for a world entirely of their own. minnie&clem, two names said so often together it had become like a single word. next door neighbors turned best friends. soulmates, if they believed in that type of thing. by age twelve that had shared everything there was to have to their names with each other. by sixteen, they had become two disparate beings. the kind and beautiful and enchanting minnie, so easy to love. she floated across the dance floor on pointe shoes and then in heels, drawing people to her like moths to a flame. everyone wanted to be friends with minnie, to be close to minnie, to be with minnie. but no one came as close as clem, who clung like a shadow. the one half a step behind, half a beat off. it was fine with her. who needed all the eyes in the world on her when she had minnie's to herself?

life changed forever in a single month. a handsome face new to town, breezing by and caught up in minnie's orbit like everyone else. a few nights away. a weekend out into the city. clem sitting alone on her bedroom floor waiting up as the clock ticks later and later. then, a pregnancy test. then two. three, just to be sure. an undeniable positive fourth. the boyfriend, if he could even be called that, is gone as quickly as he arrived. suddenly, minnie wasn't a star anymore. just a small town tragedy, a pretty girl who should have known better. someone to whisper about on the street, someone to avoid and ignore. it was okay, because clem was there. clem had always been there, ready to catch her as she fell. ready to figure out the baby's crib and the medical appointments and how to turn their shared apartment into a place for three.

kai was born with ten fingers and ten toes and a crinkly smile just like his mom's. although minnie doesn't take to motherhood the way she took to everything else in life, clem had never wondered for a moment if she loved the little baby sleeping soundly in her arms. from the first babble to the first steps, there wasn't anything clem didn't adore. it didn't matter what other people said, the snide remarks over her head, the mocking taunts whenever she went into town. a shadow taking care of someone else's baby. the girl chained by her own heart.

on a tuesday, minnie doesn't come home. late nights aren't a stranger to either of them, two girls without a college degree or a steady career. but then wednesday and thursday passed without a peep. no one in town had seen her in forever. minnie's existence had gone by without a blip since her pregnancy. it was like the whole town had forgotten what was once the center of their galaxy. the sun had been erased from their memory once they had stopped wanting her. but clem had never forgotten, could never forget. after a month of silence, a month of being waved away, a month into being forgotten, clem packed her bags and kai away into the back of the car and drove off. as she drove past desert landscapes and other towns and city skylines, clem threw away the past into the wind and reinvented herself. a new name, a new life, a new her.

it was meant to be a temporary stop, but sitting in the crappy motel room paid for in cash, surrounded by empty rooms and infrequent tourists and locals too busy trying to survive to give anything strange a second glance, she thought this was the chance to turn a new leaf. as far as anyone in this town is aware, nothing was amiss. the car? hers. the baby? hers. the name on the ledger, the one on her uniform name tag, the one people call for? hers. welcome to your new life, minnie daniels.

Extras.