New Horizons Read Online Free

mouthful. Nobody called me Valerie except my parents when they were pissed at me. They had been calling me Valerie a lot.
    “You can take a seat here.” He pointed to one of the seats in front of his desk.
    I took a seat. Not because he told me to. I was tired and my feet hurt. They were sore from walking barefoot across the ground. I didn’t know nature could be so sharp.
    "Do you know where you are, Valerie?"
    I nodded. "Of course.”
    “Where are you then?”
    “I’m in an office with a window.”
    There was a chuckle behind me.
    I looked behind my shoulder and saw that Avril and Burrito Eater were gone and replaced with a different man. He had no hair and huge shoulders that curled toward me. He was probably in his forties by the look of the crow’s feet appearing on the edges of his eyes. But he was in good shape.
    "You’re correct, but there is always a better answer. Would you like to try again?”
    “I don’t believe in better answers. I just believe in any answer. But thank you for the opportunity.”
    “You’re at a facility that I run for troubled youth, like yourself.”
    “I saw the sign.” I pointed over his shoulder, signalling that the proof was somewhere behind him. “But I have yet to see this facility you’re talking about.”
    “That’s just a word. Don’t be scared of it. I like to think of this program as a facility, that’s all. Because a facility is a place that is necessary to do something. I see this program as a facility, and if successful, it will pump out a product that meets the high standard society sets. Hence, facility for troubled youth.”
    “And I’m guessing I’m meant to be the product.”
    “In time, maybe you could be.”
    “But I’m not troubled.”
    “No? I think everyone is troubled about something. And this program is here for you to figure it out. So—what are you troubled about?”
    I stared at him. There were a lot of places on old people to stare at. That’s why they were so interesting. Because they had weird hairs coming out of weird places, and spots that weren’t there twenty-years ago. And Larry had a huge nose. Why did noses get bigger and bigger as people got older?
    “Come on, Valerie. There has to be one thing you’re troubled about.”
    “If I had to say one thing…” I played with my earlobe, and thought hard about the deep, underlying issues that kept me awake at night. “I used to straighten my hair all the time until I realized it was frying my hair. I stopped straightening it so it would get healthy and that’s why it looks a little fluffy around the edges. But I miss having sleek hair sometimes, and bleaching it has been counterproductive. So yeah, now that I think about it, I’d say my hair has been pretty troubling.”
    He leaned over his desk and flipped open a file that was sitting in front of him. It had my name across the top in cursive writing. I couldn’t remember the last time I used cursive, or even printed out my name.
    I stared at my nails. They were chipping. Originally they had been painted with a purple nail polish. It was nice to be able to paint over dark, filthy nails. But of course, there was no nail polish that could last forever.
    "We haven't discussed the rules of New Horizons yet. That’s where you are, if you don’t know."
    "Oh I thought I was still at home.”
    He didn’t acknowledge that I had said anything. His eyes stayed on the documents in front of him, slowly reading the lines that were spread out across the page. He was occupied by whatever he was flipping through, and I wondered what exactly was on those pages. I didn’t really care what was written about me. The real story could only ever be written by me, and that was a story I didn’t know how to write, and didn’t want to ever read.
    Two minutes later, he closed the file and looked up at me.
    “Would you give it five stars? I know it’s not a literary piece and all that, but the pacing isn’t bad and there’s some good plot. And