No matter how much Miles swore the strangers on the other end couldn’t see anything too revealing, I couldn’t bring myself to use my real last name when I logged in the first time. I kept thinking how perfect of a setup it would be for a thriller movie. A stranger on the other side of the world tracks me down through the app. Might as well make them work for it.

But also, I wanted a few hours a day as far away from my life as possible. Even if it was only through a screen.

I check to see if anyone is online and available for a tour. Since the testing is broken into smaller groups to help track issues, my options are limited to three surrogates and wherever they might be in the world.

None of them are on, though, and I reach for my bag off the floor. A ding makes me stop and look down at the screen.

WestF has signed on and is available.

Rolling onto my back, I grab my phone again. I tap the notification to bring up his profile. Foster West, twenty-one, currently in Paris. His profile picture is of his shadow—or I assume it’s his with the cast of his phone.

Out of the three, he’s the one I choose most often. The others are constantly asking me in the chat what I want to see. But he just shows me what he thinks I should look at.

While it’s barely two in the afternoon in Ohio, it’s already evening there. I wouldn’t think any places would still be open, but when I check, there’s an available art museum nearby that doesn’t close for another hour. I select it before hitting the Wander button.

Typically, it takes a few minutes for it to connect after he accepts the tour, but as I slip in my earbuds, a dialogue box pops up, telling me I’m wandering with WestF. Then the screen flickers to life, and I’m in the museum. The white floor below and windows above filled with the dimming Parisian sky.

There’s always a pull when I see somewhere new. Like a part of my soul’s begging to go—to see what I’m forced to experience through someone else’s eyes. It reminds me of pictures and videos my dad would send me from when he traveled. The way I’d quietly promise myself to really be there one day.

I listen to the heartbeat of the museum while Foster pauses beside a large stone statue. Something abstract and harsh with smooth lines. Then he moves on to a wall of artwork, lingering on each long enough for me to absorb them fully.

It’s how I know he’s truly looking at them too.