ROMAN
For two days, I’ve kept checking my phone, hoping that a message from Maggie would pop up.
And the lack of her message is worse than the rage-inducing headlines and the kiss-and-tells.
Is it too little, too late? Or maybe I vastly overplayed the relationship between us in my head.
My phone now sits face down on the coffee table with the sound off. It was worth checking when I waited on Maggie, but now it’s just hate from everyone online, and questions from the people I know in the real world. Although the vibration is off, I still hear occasional phantom buzz.
My fingers clench every time I imagine it.
My apartment is the cleanest it’s ever been. Stress scrubbing usually alleviates the anxiety, but this time, all it’s got me is a bleach-scented house and aching elbows.
I lay back on the sofa and stare at the ceiling.
There’s enough in my bank to cover a few months, but God knows what I’ll do after that. I only hope the world will move on to the next scandal before long.
So much for the idea that the truth will set you free. I’d spoilt everything.
I wasn’t celibate.
I was a liar.
I believed it for a while, but I continued my platform long after my views had changed.
It’s amazing, really, how quickly your supporters can turn on you. And the glee with which they’ll tear you apart when you show the slightest weakness.
Sponsorships sank like boulders, while a mass exodus of followers ensued. The remaining ones seemed to stay only to watch my world implode.
A woman I recognised from two years ago sold a story about how I cried after sex. Another one said I couldn’t even finish because the guilt ate at me. Someone else said that I’d begged her not to tell anyone my real name.
They all stung, but the last one the most. Because it was true. She’d seen my name on a letter that had fallen down the side of the sofa.
The screen holds hundreds of notifications when I finally pick it up.
I’m going to delete it all. Disappear from the internet and figure out my next steps away from it.
I pull up Instagram first, delete my account, then delete the app. The sense of relief that washes over me is instant. Then TikTok. Then Threads. The podcast feed. The mailing list.
When each one asks me multiple times if I’m sure, I hit yes. I’ve never been more sure of something in my life.
Placing the phone on the table, screen facing me, I stare. The lack of notifications is almost louder than the chaos before.
No red dots or flashing banners dragging me back into the online world. Nobody is demanding my attention, whether I want to give it or not. The only people who can reach me are those who have my personal number, and those are few and far between.
Fuck.
It’s glorious.
Lying back, I focus on box breathing and bathing in the quiet.
It feels like stepping outside after being in prison, or how I imagine it anyway. It’s wild that in one of the busiest cities in the world, I can find peace without the outside world having instant access to me via my bloody phone.
And in the calm, I think of Maggie. No matter how hard I try to avoid her from infiltrating my brain.
The truth is, I fell for her in Scotland, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t get her out of my head. Not that I want to. What I want is to storm into her apartment and beg her to give me a chance.
But what if she’d played me the whole time? What if she’d found it amusing to make me believe there was a genuine intimacy within the chaos? There was no doubt that she was brought up with a completely different set of morals than is generally standard; had I been nothing more than a means to an end?
