My eyes snap open as I whip my head toward the device. It’s just past midnight. Who’s messaging me at this hour?
It vibrates three more times. I glance at the front door to check if Joyce might have left her keys on the hook before heading to work, but the only thing I can see is the fluffy emo rabbit hanging off my keychain. The sixth notification has me snatching my phone off the charger and clicking the pop-up without reading it.
Over and over, my phone vibrates with incoming messages. My throat tightens, waiting for the screen to load. One by one, the messages appear, and I frown, rereading them because there’s no way...
My blood runs cold.
The phone clatters onto the table as my breath tears a roaring path up my lungs. Panic sinks its claws into me, plastering a bleary film over my vision. I stumble out of my chair, putting as much distance as I can between myself and the device. My fingers tremble as I clasp my hand over my mouth, tasting bile.
No.
No.
My phone keeps vibrating. Over and over and over. I—fuck.Why can’t Joyce be here? What do I do? How do I make it stop?
I inch closer, hoping and praying that my imagination is playing tricks on me. Maybe my phone is glitching. Maybe I’m imagining the messages.
Violent tremors shake my body as I read through the group chat I’ve been added to. The first thing I see is a picture of a phone with the message I sent Leo on the screen, followed by a NSFW post from one of my books. The things Leo’s teammates are saying have my heart sticking in my throat.
Jack Norton: I bet you’re into some kinky shit.
Simon Bradon: Girls like u are so easy
Galvin Doyle: How desperate are you? LOL
Messages keep rolling in from men I don’t recognize. There have to be at least fifteen guys in this group chat. Every single one of them is joining in on the fun; they’re making comments about my appearance, and mocking my books and the explicit content in them. But there’s next to nothing about the message I sent to Leo.
I clutch my chest, shaking my head. It’s not real. It can’t be. This isnothappening to me.
Where the fuck is Leo in all this? How did they get that?
I can handle ignorance. I can understand rejection. But sharing my message with his friends? Letting them go through my profile and say these disgusting things to me?
Blake is better than this.Leois meant to be better than this. He’s meant to be my knight in shining armor who stops the world from getting to me. No, this doesn’t make sense.
Where the fuck is he?
Leo never even responded to me. How dare he treat me like this? After everything I’ve done? I was nice and professional toward him. I watched from afar. Shit, I’ve all but created a fucking shrine for him, and he turns around and doesthis? Whatever the fuck this is.
My phone trembles in my hands. My glasses fog up as tears burn down my cheeks. Through blurry vision, I watch the little icons pop up at the bottom of the screen of all the profiles reading the message. Leo’s co-workers and friends. All distinctly male. The profiles keep appearing, silently laughing at me when images from my personal profile are sent into the chat. Pictures of my life that I’ve kept totally separate from writing. It’s the clean version of me that my family sees. The side that I’ve kept under lock and key to avoid this very thing from happening.
They’re going to dox me.
Panic claws at my throat. Jack sends a picture of me on my first day of college, standing proudly in front of the welcome sign.
Jack Norton: You look cute here.
Joyce and I took that photo a week before we finally took a stance against our parents and moved out of their homes, kissed med school goodbye—not that either of us got in—and started the arts degree neither of us completed.
One right after the other, more photos are shared: selfies, family reunions, pictures taken from holidays I went on with Joyce.
How the fuck did he find them? My personal account is private—completely different from my pseudonym. I didn’t want anyone else from my normal life to know about what I do or the type of things I write.
But now Leo, Jack, and every single one of their friends knows my name, what I look like, and what city I live in. I shouldn’t feel shame over what I write, but society is far from accepting.
The walls are closing in. I can’t breathe. The fissures in my composure feel like another score in their books. Another mark against my name. It’s like they’re winning.
I scrub my hand over my face, then rub it up and down my thigh to try to get ahold of myself enough to think clearly. I haven’t been bullied since I was in high school, and I refuse to be the victim again—I’m enough of one around my own blood.
