Our Sixth Contestant

Kenna

Tears filled Kenna’s eyes as she desperately tried refreshing her daughter’s instagram page. It was official. Kenna was blocked.

Devastated, Kenna tossed the phone onto a stack of packed cardboard boxes, dropping all the way to the floor to sit on her mattress. Her fists balled up on either side of her temples as she smushed her own face. Today was supposed to be her daughter’s first day at MIT. Despite everything, Kenna was promised a call and pictures.

Instead she was blocked. She couldn’t say she didn’t deserve it. But she also couldn’t say that it didn’t hurt. A lot. More than anything in the past few months, this hurt Kenna beyond the point of a reaction. She just sat there for a long time, sitting in a dissociated void of despair before, beyond her own cognition, she grabbed her purse, put on her jacket, and walked out the door.

Luna didn’t want to talk to her right now, that was fine. But damnit, Kenna was getting her daughter through school. Kenna took the job for one reason: to bankroll the best four years of her daughter’s life. Kenna had budgeted every week of her life for the next four years with every cent not spent on the barest of necessities being sent to her daughter’s tuition, savings account, and even checking account so that Luna would want for nothing.

That way, if nothing else, she remained involved. There was still some link between her and her daughter. Some thin strand of dollars Kenna might be able to walk across some day.

Kenna lost a lot of things in the divorce. She gave up a lot of things she could have kept just to try and make amends. But her daughter’s respect was the worst of it. She really thought she’d fallen in love. She really believed her husband was a useless idiot. She truly believed she deserved to cheat on him. Until she was caught at work and realized just how much of a lie she’d been living in.

Now she wasn’t even sure if she deserved the mattress on the floor.

It wasn’t until she had fully dissociated that she was able to stand up and leave her apartment for the subway. She had a school to pay for.