Chapter 9
After that, there is no stopping me. I tried, of course, for a while.
I managed to extricate the phone from my hand and paced about my tiny apartment, muttering frantically out loud: “It’s okay, Fern.
It has nothing to do with you. This is completely separate from you and your book deal.
She’s all the way back in LA, she can’t get to you.
She doesn’t have a hold over you, it’s fine.
Just mute her on everything and forget about her. It’s fine. It’s fine!”
This lasted about seven whole minutes. The whole time, my insides churned and boiled, the tension building inside me until the floodgates exploded and I practically pounced at my phone.
I do a search for Haven Lee on Twitter but find nothing.
She must be on here. A dark feeling claws at my stomach, and I log out of my Twitter profile before logging on to an alternate account.
I do the search once more, and this time, her name shows up.
I break out into cold sweat. My instincts were right.
I haven’t come across Haven’s Twitter profile all this time because she’s blocked me.
A tremor goes up my arms, making me shiver.
After all these years, she still has it out for me.
Why? I give myself a little shake. Doesn’t matter.
Don’t try to come up with an explanation for Haven’s wanton cruelty. Focus on this.
Gulping, I tap on Haven’s Twitter profile.
I can’t believe that all this time, I’ve been stalking her on Facebook and Instagram but never on Twitter.
I guess I saw Twitter as a publishing-only space, and there had never been any indication of Haven even being remotely connected to publishing.
She’s a food influencer, for god’s sake!
She cooks huge feasts for her adorable parents!
And all of a sudden here she is, writing a novel about sexual assault? What the hell?
When Haven’s profile opens, the latest tweet she posted is only two hours ago, and it’s a link to an article about her UK deal. An actual article, not just a short and sweet deal announcement.
Margery Lynn at Red Line Books has landed, at a very competitive auction, at a high six-figure deal, the debut adult novel from Haven M. Lee, She Asked for It. Film rights have already been optioned, at auction, to Sony Pictures.
Pitched as You meets the #MeToo movement, the story follows Emma Underwood, a junior associate at a law firm who finds herself caught in a media bloodbath when she comes forward with a sexual assault allegation against her mentor and employer, who is about to obtain judgeship.
Lee graduated with a degree in pre-law from Stanford and is currently based in Los Angeles, California. She Asked for It is her debut novel.
Lee said: “I cannot believe what a whirlwind this entire process has been from start to finish. From the moment I spoke to Margery, I knew that this book will be in the best possible hands. She just got it so completely, everything I was trying to achieve with this story. I can’t wait to see what she and the team at Red Line Books will do. ”
Lynn said: “I have never come across a story like She Asked for It. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time I read it, and by the time I finished, I had no fingernails left! It’s the most tense, heartbreaking, and enraging read you will ever come across.
A must-read for every woman in our generation.
I cannot wait to introduce everyone to the brilliance that is Haven M. Lee.”
Hell, it’s such an effective article that by the end of it, I’m wishing I had a copy of She Asked for It so I, too, can see what all the fuss is about.
I close the tab and go back to Twitter. There is a small node of bitterness in my belly, and I know I’m feeding it with every triumphant post of Haven’s that I take in.
@HavenMLee: I am incandescent with joy to announce that I have a book deal!!! I am going to be a published author!!! (Posted along with a screenshot of her PM deal announcement.) Two thousand, seven hundred, and eighty-five likes, and over six hundred comments.
The comments are a riot of celebratory screaming GIFs and equally celebratory screaming words, all caps lock, each one peppered with half a dozen exclamation marks. And how in the world are there almost three thousand likes already? She only posted that this morning.
@HavenMLee: I never thought I had what it takes to write anything remotely approaching a novel, but my dreams have come true, all thanks to my amazing agent Rachel Reed. One thousand, six hundred, and thirty-two likes, and almost three hundred comments.
The fact that her little throwaway tweet thanking her agent got three times more likes than my deal announcement did eats away at my skin like acid.
I look at Haven’s follower count. She has six thousand followers on Twitter.
How in the hell? I continue scrolling, ignoring the way the bitterness is seeping into the rest of my body, tainting me with its darkness.
@HavenMLee: Um, guys? I think I’m going to have some very exciting news soon .
. . Over six hundred likes and two hundred comments all begging to know what it could be.
Are you serious? I want to snap at the screen.
I cannot stand posts like these. Coy, teasing, nothing but bait to get more attention.
But look at how effective it was. And isn’t that just classic Haven?
@HavenMLee: Signing something utterly magical!
!! (Posted along with a photo of her posing with a stack of papers as she smiles up into the camera.) The stack of papers is probably her numerous publishing contracts, I realize as I gaze with growing nausea at her beautiful, flawless face.
This one has over a thousand likes. God, how have I missed her presence in the Twitter writing community this whole time?
Even on my alternate account, which I sometimes use to trawl through Twitter, I never came across her. How can that be possible?
I scroll down faster and faster, her posts becoming a blur to me.
Is it because she rarely uses the writing community hashtag?
Yes, I think, that must be it. None of her posts have the hashtag.
But why don’t they? Every writer I know of wants to connect with other writers.
Writing is such a lonely vocation, so isolating, that we all crave connections with like-minded people, peers who know exactly what the struggle of trying to break into publishing is like.
But here is Haven, hiding from Publishing Twitter, unlike everyone else. Why?
The answer, when it finally dawns, stops me cold.
Because of you, a sinister voice in my head whispers.
Because you are intrinsically tied to Dani, and she knows what she did.
Because you are so active in the writing community.
She would’ve seen your posts on Twitter.
She would’ve found you. You use your real name on here, unlike on Instagram, where you use a sock puppet account to follow her.
She’s got you blocked, but that wasn’t enough.
She’s decided to . . . what? To lie low until she can blast out of the water like a great white shark to slice you in half without you even realizing it?
Ridiculous. Even though it’s true that ever since high school, Haven and I have largely stayed away from each other, I don’t believe that she’d stay out of the writing community just to avoid me.
Who says she stayed away from the writing community? The voice continues whispering.
I scroll through her posts again, this time reading the comments, and it hits me that many of these comments aren’t your run-of-the-mill congratulatory messages from random strangers.
The way these writers are interacting with Haven makes it clear that they know each other.
They call one another “dear friend” or “girlie” or other forms of familiar affectations.
The bitterness inside me has grown so thick, so cloying, that it almost chokes me.
How is this possible? She’s even friends with a lot of the people I know. We have mutuals? What?
I wonder, the voice in my head says, what she’s told them about you. What she’s told them about Dani.
And now I feel so utterly sick that I think I might actually throw up.
No. This can’t happen again, not to the only community I have, the only community that I’ve devoted time and effort into turning into a safe space for myself.
I cannot let it turn into another high school experience, with me as a friendless pariah.
God, please no. The thought of it is so bleak that my nose starts itching, my eyes filling up with tears.
I can’t stomach the thought of Haven isolating me from my writing friends with vicious gossip. It would kill me.
The thought strikes with unforgiving clarity.
There is no hyperbole here. My high school experience has scarred me so badly that I didn’t let myself get close to anyone in college.
I have no social life, zero friends, barely a relationship with my own parents.
If I lost my online community, I wouldn’t have anything else to live for.
I shake my head. Come on, Fern, calm down.
Haven Lee has a seven-figure book deal. She doesn’t have time for you.
She’s moved on with her life; she’s on to much better things than picking on you.
You’re not even on her radar. She’s probably not actively using the Twitter hashtag because she’s above hashtags.
Right? She is exactly the sort of person who thinks she’s too good for hashtags.
My breath, previously ragged and shallow, starts to even out. Yeah, that’s right. Haven probably thinks she’s above the writing community hashtag. And she is, objectively. She is above pretty much everyone else in the debut authors group.