There I was, in a wilderness of someone else’s making, wondering how I had gotten there and if I’d ever find my way out. Unlike Moses, I hadn’t committed a crime; and also unlike Moses I wasn’t in the wilderness with a purpose, like herding sheep. Nope. I was just wandering, looking for a sign.

When I said Jessica never spoke to me again, I really meant she never spoke to me again. I texted her and she left me on read. I tried to get mutual friends to speak to her on my behalf and they wouldn’t. I even reached out to Chris, but he ducked my messages too. I called her mother. No dice. Everyone said, just give it time. She’ll come around. But she didn’t. She cut me out of her life because I had offended her brother, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why it mattered so much.

Was it the drawings themselves? Was something about him drawing me like that upsetting to her? Why would Chris’ drawings of me as a hot car girl make her throw away our whole friendship? At some point it didn’t make any sense to keep asking the questions. I just had to try to move on, without the one person who I had shared my whole life with, who knew everything about me, and who I thought would be there to the end of the line.

It really sucks to find out your ride-or-die isn’t going to do either for you.

So, yeah. Wilderness. Wandering. Wondering without answers. Looking for signs. And then, one day, I saw it- the burning bush.

Again, it wasn’t a literal burning bush. And I wouldn’t even say that it was a place where God was waiting for me. Maybe God was there somewhere, but the feeling I got from what I saw wasn’t one of holy ground. I had a profound sense of peace though, a moment of clarity that was so raw I couldn’t keep being aimless, listless, friendless. I knew as soon as I saw it that I had to move forward, without answers, because the only answer I needed about anything was right there in the headline I saw as I scrolled on the internet.

Alleged Identity Thief Finds Herself the Victim of Her Own Crime

Under the headline was a picture of Jessica. The article laid out that for years she had been part of a scheme to steal and sell personal information, most often by hacking into online order databases from high traffic websites. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. The woman they described didn’t sound like Jessica at all. They even called her by a different name- Meredith Smalls.

Had she never really been who she said she was?

I thought back to when I’d first met her, fresh out of college, looking for work. We used to frequent the same coffee shop back then, and we became friends after several weeks of both of us using the wifi to search for jobs. Jessica (Meredith?) had never landed anything permanent. She was always moving from place to place. How had I missed that she was a completely different person than the one that I had known, that she was living this secret other life that I had no insight into at all.

I still don’t know why Chris drawing pictures of me ended the relationship, but after seeing the article, it didn’t matter. I knew the truth, looking at the sign, the miracle in the wilderness without any kind of closure: she lied to me about who she was. That was all I needed to know.

I closed the article and texted my mom. You’ll never believe this. I sent her a link to what I had just read.

It was only a couple of minutes before I got a reply. Well, now you know.

I did know. It wasn’t the answer I was looking for, but maybe that was okay. After all, do you think Moses went up that mountain to see a bush caught on fire but not burning up, and to hear God telling him to go back to Egypt? No. I think sometimes you’re going about your life and then something smacks you on the head, and the pieces you tried to fit together all the sudden seem a lot more like a picture.