Another text from my mother. Happy to read anything you have so far!
“Jesus, go to bed, Mom,” I say into the quiet room, regretting my earlier text.
I’m a visual thinker, which is why I work on paper and not a computer. My notes are like a complicated map with arrows connecting ideas to names and dates. I’ve got over a hundred pages—handwritten jots, outlines, interviews—but ten years out, it’s all old news.
I ease open the bottom drawer and pull out what I do have—fifty-three pages, double spaced, Times New Roman—the start of a novel I haven’t had time to work on in over a year.
What would my mother think to know this is all I’ve got? I’m a cliché, a frustrated journalist taking her useless research and turning it into fiction. A story about a female con artist traveling the country, the different ways I imagined she targeted people. The things she stole. If I can’t expose her in the New York Times, maybe I can expose her on their bestseller list instead.
I shove it all back in the drawer. It’s a ridiculous dream and one I can’t afford to pursue.
I creep into the bedroom, where Scott is just a dark lump under the covers. I change quickly and slide in, fitting myself up against him. I’d met Scott five years ago, when an online data breach had compromised my bank account, the thieves stealing nearly $1,000. Scott had been the detective to work my case.
“These are becoming more and more common,” he’d told me when he took my statement. “Everyone says their website is secure, but that’s really an impossible thing to promise.”
“I’ll be paper-only from now on,” I told him.
He’d laughed, and I loved the way his eyes crinkled around the corners, like happiness enveloped his entire face. “I’m not sure that’s any more secure,” he said. “I’ll keep you posted on any developments, but don’t hold your breath.”
We never caught the thief, but Scott and I became friends, eventually even working on a few cases together. I’d worked hard over the years to deal with the trauma of what Nate had done, but trusting men was still difficult. When Scott invited me to go to the LA County Fair, my therapist encouraged me to give it a try. And when I told Scott I’d go if I could buy my own food, he only shrugged and said, “I don’t care if you go behind the counter and make it yourself. I’m just happy you said yes.”
I thought he’d last a few months and then grow weary of my insistence on sleeping at home—alone—every night. How sometimes dark places like movie theaters or dive bars made me nervous.
“Take your time,” Scott had said, over and over again. “You’re worth it.”
And after a while, I began to trust him, telling him a little bit about what happened to me. Not specifics, just enough for him to know that I’d suffered an assault. “Did you report it?” he’d asked, as I knew he would.
“It’s complicated,” I said. “It was part of a larger story I’d been working on. I was somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be, talking to someone I wasn’t supposed to be talking to. I was young and scared, and I only wanted it to be over.”
But the truth was, I had no proof. I’d gone to work the following day and pretended nothing had happened. There were no witnesses. No rape kit or police report. If it really happened, why did she wait so long to tell someone? It would have been my word against Nate’s, and I never wanted to see Nate again.
Scott’s voice softened. “Statistically, only 35 percent of women report an assault. Even fewer get a conviction.” He looked grim. “I always think it’s worth trying to prosecute, but I acknowledge that I’m not a woman or a victim, so I don’t get to have an opinion.”
I never told him that I felt Meg was partly to blame. Instead, I concealed my anger beneath a determination to find her. To tell her story and take back a little bit of the agency I’d lost.