We need to talk.
Oh god, oh god, oh god. She looks over at a sleeping Richard. What is she going to do? She can’t lose all this. Her kids, her job, her husband, her house ...
Something nudges her memory. The article, the interview with Thandiwe Adams. Richard’s comment about a premiere. A quick google confirms it. Thandiwe Adams and the actor playing Ben are in Dublin for a round of publicity events. Her finger runs down her phone screen. There. An interview in the Lighthouse Cinema at three this afternoon. As Richard snores gently beside her, she buys a ticket for one.
Elena’s heart pounds as she walks into the cinema, her head dipped. What if Thandiwe Adams is someone from her past, operating under a new name? What if Kyle is here? She pulls her baseball cap lower over her face and slides into her seat. She desperately wants to see if Kyle is here but doesn’t dare look around. Once the lights are lowered, she lets out a breath. The interview would have been interesting under any other circumstances but Elena doesn’t want to hear about casting, about filming, about the gruel of screenwriting. She wants to know where Thandiwe got her idea. This story in the magazine article – the one about the real-life roommate – that doesn’t wash. There’s no way Thandiwe coincidentally had a roommate who behaved exactly the same way as Kristina, who died in exactly the same way as Kristina. Fifteen minutes before the end, there’s a Q and A. Elena wills someone to ask the question. The people around her don’t hear her silent pleas – they ask what celebrities she’s met and if she’s been to the Emmys. Elena wants to shake them. The man sitting beside her claps enthusiastically at Thandiwe’s answer to whether or not she’s met George Clooney (she has).
‘I wish I could ask my question but my editor’s warned me not to go there,’ Elena whispers to her neighbour.
He turns, eyes wide. ‘Oh? You’re a journalist?’
Elena puts a finger to her lips. ‘There’s a rumour that she plagiarised the screenplay – well, stole the idea from another writer. But we’ll be sued if we print it, and my editor’s been warned not to ask where she got the idea from. But I keep wishing someone would. You know, a member of the public who can’t be sued.’ She watches his face. There’s no way he’ll fall for this. Is there? His hand is up. A mic is passed to him.
‘Hi, Thandiwe, lovedThe Roommate. Could I ask, where did you get the idea for the show?’
Onstage, the screenwriter smiles. ‘OK, so the official reason – the one I’ve given in interviews – is that it’s loosely based on a former roommate I had. But.’ She stops, winks theatrically. ‘We’re all friends here, right? This is a private space? OK, don’t post this on socials, but put it this way: like many writers, I get my inspiration all over, newspapers and true crime especially. Reddit is fantastic, people share all sorts of things there. There’s a subreddit called Confessions True-or-False where people post crazy stories. I have no idea if they’re true or not – that’s kind of the idea behind it – but it’s a very fruitful hunting ground.’ She winks again. ‘That’s all I can say!’
The man thanks Thandiwe and turns to Elena, beaming.
‘Do you need my name for your article?’
Elena walks quickly from the cinema, makes her way into Epicure, a nearby wine bar that’s filling up with Saturday-evening customers. Sitting at a table for one at the back of the bar, she goes on to Reddit and finds r/ConfessionsTrueorFalse. A glass of Rioja arrives at her table but she barely glances up as she scrolls the entries. There are so, so many ... She tries some keywords. Fire, cabin, roommate, promotion. And oh god, oh god, it’s there.
Posted by a user called u/HeRocks1980, it’s all laid bare, the whole story. Fictional names, disguised setting, but otherwise, exactly as it happened.
Fuck, Kyle, what were you thinking?
Then, as if he’s on her shoulder, watching, her phone buzzes with a text from him.
Elena. someone knows what we did. we need to talk.
Her eyes scan the bar. Is he here, can he see her? Of course not. He can’t know who she is, where she is. She uses Richard’s surname now, betraying all her feminist leanings. She stays off social media. There are photos – professional shots on Ventech’s website, on LinkedIn, at conferences. But her sleek, dark, shoulder-length bob is very different to the blonde waves of fifteen years ago. Contacts have replaced her glasses, braces have fixed her teeth.
Deep breath. She just needs to keep her head down, let the hype over the show die out, and Kyle will go away again.
Only he doesn’t.
The texts keep coming, all through Saturday night, on into Sunday. She blocks his number. On Monday morning, work is her sanctuary. She tells her assistant she’s not to be disturbed as she prepares for a meeting and closes her office door, pushing all thoughts ofThe Roommateaway.
Half an hour later, a knock pulls her from her screen – her assistant pops her head in.
‘I know you said to hold all your calls this morning but a man called Kyle Rookwood phoned to ask if you’re here today and what time you usually leave the office. He wouldn’t say why but he said it’s important. I didn’t tell him what time you leave because it seemed a little strange ... He called back a second time, and I can hear the phone ringing again. Will I ask him to stop calling?’
Elena blinks. Nods.
‘You did the right thing. Thanks, Yasmin.’
Fuck. As the door closes, she puts her head in her hands.
This isn’t going away.
Her eyes flick back to her screen. To the pitch-perfect presentation she’s prepared for the meeting. To the thanks inher inbox for last week’s crisis management. Panicking isn’t her way. She’s a firefighter. She needs to tackle this head-on.
And she needs to find out everything she can about Kyle.
For an hour, she combs his social media accounts. Photos from a gym feature regularly, occasional pictures from outside Rocks. A night out in The Grange, a pub she knows that’s not far from where she lives. Another picture from The Grange a week earlier. His local, maybe? She keeps scrolling. A photo from inside his home now. A New Year’s Eve party. Beer bottles, ashtrays, a group of four men clinking glasses, eyes red in the flash. And then she strikes gold. A photo from two years ago, taken outside his home. He’s holding a bunch of keys aloft, grinning for the camera.
‘Back in Deansgrange’, the caption reads, ‘and this time for good.’
