Chapter 22
“This guy never skips leg day.”
Hayden and I gaze up at the statue of Mothman, who could cut steel with his abs. I don’t know who designed this statue, but I imagine this is what it’s like in the darkest parts of Hayden’s brain—for example, the part I think secretly lusts to get in bed with a cryptid. The statue towers over us like a knight in shining armor, with razor-sharp wings and bright red eyes glaring out over Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
This thing has intense abs and pecs, and as I round the statue with the camcorder, I observe the back of the sculpture.
“He’s got an ass that won’t quit, too,” I add. I cannot believe Skroll is letting us expense a trip to film Mothman’s hard, steel ass.
Hayden joins me behind the statue, one hand planted firmly on a cheek. “I think you’ve seen better.”
“You’re fishing for compliments.”
“Maybe.”
A few weeks ago, we’d have cut that segment in a heartbeat, but now, the secret is out. Our fans know we’re together, and while we haven’t outwardly said it ourselves, we’re not trying to hide anything. We appear in each other’s social media stories and posts, never minding how close we look, and like the occasional comment about what a cute couple we are, just to keep things interesting.
So for now, I let the camera linger on Hayden for a moment longer, capturing his sly smile, raised eyebrows, and soft laugh as he carefully peels his hand off Mothman’s ass. I lean in, grabbing him by his jacket collar, and kiss him.
“See? You’re not mad at me,” he taunts with a smirk.
I’ve suppressed most of my memories from our camping escapades last night. I shove my bugbites and the feeling of blades of grass stuck to me back into the bowels of my brain with the part in Pinocchio where they turn into donkeys . The horror of peeing in the woods will live with me until I die, but at least I didn’t need to use a leaf.
We did not find Mothman, but I didn’t hate being in the woods as much this time. Hayden’s an alarmingly good camper—he can cook on a little fire he builds himself, he knows how to make sleeping bags comfortable, and I feel fairly certain he’d fight a bear for me. A few doses of tent sex hadn’t hurt either.
“No,” I agree. “I’m not mad , but I am making you promise, on film, that you will not make me go camping until at least halfway through next season. Please. I am begging you.”
“So, there go my hopes of a Skunk Ape episode in the first half of the season?”
“Yes, I banish those hopes to the Bermuda Triangle, thanks.”
“Back to the drawing board. Now,” he continues, slipping back into his Narrator Voice. I steady the camera on him. “Mothman is an omen of doom. His appearance has preceded many catastrophes, from the Silver Bridge collapse in 1967 to Chernobyl to 9/11.”
“Chernobyl? You’re trying to say that Mothman caused Chernobyl. What’d he do? Hit the nuclear reactor button with his thick ass?”
“No, he warned them, and they didn’t listen.”
“Are we in danger being this close to him?”
Hayden shakes his head with steadfast confidence. “No, he’s a tourist attraction. Not the real thing. You know, I think we need to come back in September and come to the Mothman Festival. It’s a whole festival. A whole festival , Hallie.”
I could die at the way he practically bounces on his toes in excitement over the prospect of a whole Mothman festival. It’s like Coachella for conspiracy theorists.
“I don’t know if there’s enough for us to do in West Virginia to warrant coming twice in one year. That’s only like three months away.”
“We can hunt for the Flatwoods Monster, too.”
“What about the Not Deer?” I stop recording and hang the camera strap over my shoulder. Hayden’s smile grows, his fingers clasping around mine as we slowly fold together, shielded by Mothman’s washboard abs and juicy ass. After spending the night in the woods, we checked into our hotel and quickly showered, but Hayden still smells like fresh air and crisp pine, and hints of lemon verbena shampoo.
“Are you ready to eat a pizza with Mothman on it?” He says this like it’s supposed to turn me on or something.
I nod. “Sure, but not as ready as you are.”
He pulls away, offering me a hand as we move through the center of town toward the pizza place. As we wait at the crosswalk, my phone buzzes and I extract it from my pocket. One notification jumps out amidst the many social media comments and likes.
NORA (2:15 PM): Have you seen this?
NORA (2:15 PM): I want this man to eat shit and die.
NORA (2:16 PM): he starts talking shit 6 mins in
I hover over the link she’s sent to our chain and click it. I know right away it’s not going to be good news.
What the Fox
Ep. #321 with Special Guest Cade Browning
Fox Evans is Cade’s knockoff Joe Rogan former roommate from college, who has hit it surprisingly big with the fuckboy podcast crowd. Against all better judgment, I press Play, right in the middle of the square.
FOX EVANS
And this is a competition, so like…I need you to win. Everyone listening—he needs to win. None of the other shows are competing at his level. Not a one.
CADE brOWNING
Yeah, there’re some odd shows in the lineup.
By now, Hayden’s swung back to me, listening in, too. He quietly asks “Cade?” and I nod before we continue.
FOX EVANS
I couldn’t help but notice a particular ex-girlfriend of yours is also working on a show in this competition.
CADE brOWNING
Yeah.
FOX EVANS
What’s up with that?
CADE brOWNING
It’s a free country. She wasn’t right for Noobie Brothers —
FOX EVANS
Yeah, she’s got some features none of the other Brothers have.
When I look back up at Hayden, he has his hands drawn behind his head, his green eyes stormy and furious beneath the lenses of his glasses.
CADE brOWNING
[CHUCKLES] And I mean, like…I don’t want to say it and sound like a dick—
FOX EVANS
You don’t come on What the Fox to sound like a nice guy. There are so few spaces for men to just be themselves anymore.
CADE brOWNING
Fine. I mean, like, she is not the cute, bubbly girl she seems like on camera. Trust me. I know her quite well off camera. People love her, but they don’t know her. But I have no control over how she behaves anymore.
FOX EVANS
Now, I don’t want to poke the bear or anything here, but I was looking at some numbers. For some reason, her show is averaging higher viewership than yours—
CADE brOWNING
Yep.
FOX EVANS
How come? I mean, look—it’s a show about ghost hunting—
CADE brOWNING
Mm, can’t forget looking for the Loch Ness Monster.
[BOTH LAUGHING]
CADE brOWNING
She randomly found this guy—
FOX EVANS
From, like, the bowels of Reddit or something—
CADE brOWNING
Or his mom’s basement.
Hayden sits down beside me on one of the benches and rests a hand on my leg. I think of a childhood full of bullying and how hard it must be to hear someone dragging his name through the mud. I pause.
“We don’t have to keep listening,” I choke out. My eyes burn, and as much as what Cade is saying is child’s play compared to what he’d say in private, so many other people are going to hear this. So many other people will eat up whatever he says like I did for years.
Hayden shakes his head and his voice comes out icy cold. “It’s up to you. I don’t care what he says about me.”
I press Play again.
FOX EVANS
I feel like I can’t even articulate how bizarre and embarrassing this show is—let me just play a clip for you…
[CLIP OF THE OUT THERE EPISODE #6]
HALLIE
What if that Bigfoot burger you’re eating is made from Bigfoot meat?
HAYDEN
It obviously isn’t. That’d imply that someone found and caught a Bigfoot and carved it for serving.
HALLIE
It’d be a shame to shove Bigfoot through a meat grinder. But I have a question.
HAYDEN
Shoot.
HALLIE
How come no one has ever found a Bigfoot skeleton?
HAYDEN
There’s been a few people who have claimed they found one or killed one, but none have been proven to be real. They’re always these sketchy guys who say things like “well, I can’t tell you where it is, but I have it.”
HALLIE
Not sketchy at all.
HAYDEN
I know, says another sketchy guy.
[BOTH LAUGHING]
HALLIE
So, Bigfoot’s immortal?
HAYDEN
Anything’s possible.
HALLIE
Right. It’s Out There. How’s the burger?
HAYDEN
Honestly? It’s kind of dry.
[BEAT]
FOX EVANS
You see what I mean?
CADE brOWNING
You don’t gotta tell me, dude. Whatever she can do for the attention, I guess. This is just what she does. She’s so insecure that she needs someone to be tooting her horn all the time. She’s needy, and clingy, and if she didn’t sleep with all her coworkers, she’d be out of a job.
FOX EVANS
Shit. That true?
CADE brOWNING
She’s two for two that I know of.
FOX EVANS
This guy?
CADE brOWNING
Yeah, came out a few weeks ago that they’re together. She’s clearly using him and it’s really upsetting that she’d do it to another person just trying to make their mark.
FOX EVANS
Match made in weirdo heaven, I guess. You know, that’s why you can’t trust women like her. You want to believe they’re being genuinely kind and nice, but then they pull shit like this and it makes us look bad. You know, there’s a name for girls like her. We can’t say it on my show, but there is.
CADE brOWNING
[LAUGHS] Yep. If I get you taken off the air, you’ll never have me back.
?
?
I close the episode with shaking fingers and I feel like I’m going to be sick. I don’t want to look at Hayden and face that maybe this time when he hears Cade say it, he’ll buy it. But one peek at him tells me he won’t. His hands ball in fists against his jeans and his jaw is a tight, straight line.
That should bring me comfort enough, but it doesn’t. Not now. More notifications buzz at my phone, responses to my latest post from earlier this morning—a photo of me frowning at our collapsed tent after I tried to disassemble it—and I start to read. The earlier comments were punny jokes and quips, the occasional serious conspiracy theorist telling me that the reason we didn’t find Mothman is because we weren’t “deep woods-ing it” enough, which I shall never do.
Now the conversation’s shifted.
Do u really think she’s just dating him for the attention? To get on the show?
I rly hope not:/ Hayden deserves better than getting played by some bitch
Don’t care. 2 for 2 on sleeping with her coworkers is low and why no one roots for women to succeed. Done watching this show now.
I think I’m out, too.
Before I can read more, Hayden rests a hand on top of mine and nudges me to put the phone down.
I always knew the risks of stepping into the spotlight. The hammer will always come down harder on a woman than a man, so any step out of line I took would be met with vitriol and angry virtual pitchforks. I know there are people who don’t like me, or who find me annoying, but they seem to be a small minority I can ignore easily when so many of our fans flood our comments with love.
I’ve spent months disproving all the conspiracy theories Cade’s spread about me and let fester inside my brain, only for him to throw the evidence back in my face. Only for him to find some way to sabotage my hard work at the finish line. With each negative comment that pops up on my screen, I know one other person is believing him and turning our fans against us.
All because I fell in love with the wrong person. Then because I fell in love with the right person.
And I knew better.
I knew better than to be fearless and blaze my own path. I knew better than to claim any space being seen.
I look up at Mothman, and his titanium, jacked body stares me down. Who the fuck made this statue? Mothman has abs and a tight ass. Mothman goes to CrossFit. Mothman flips tires for fun.
An omen of doom is fucking right.
I stand, and before I can break down in front of nice little families trying to take pictures with Mothman, I flee. Hayden follows close behind me, guiding me back to our rental car. We arrive at the gray sedan that smells like smoke and stale French fries, and Hayden quickly opens the back door and I realize what he’s doing.
I slide into the back seat with him and as soon as the door slams behind him, I give in to the tears. Hayden sweeps me into his arms, his lap, and holds on to me like it’s his personal responsibility to keep me from falling apart. I cry into his jacket, hot tears sliding off the waterproof windbreaker fabric, in broken, heaving sobs that won’t stop until it feels like I can’t breathe anymore.
“It’s okay,” Hayden whispers. “I promise it’ll be okay.”
I struggle to believe him, but I don’t struggle to believe that other people will take Cade’s words at face value. If our fans turn against me, it’ll run The Out There into the ground. It’s only been a few hours and the Skroll fans have already gotten wind of this. We got cocky, showed our hands, and Cade retaliated. He knows he’s going to lose, so he did whatever he could to hurt us. To hurt me. No, to punish me for being brave enough to tell him “no” time and time again.
It scares me the most that even now—when I have someone who cares for me so unconditionally, a job that makes me excited to go to work, fans who hang on to everything we say and post, who tell us every week how happy our show makes them—I might never be free of the scars Cade left behind.
Hayden’s grip tightens on my jacket, like he’s restraining himself from acting out, and I suddenly wish he’d punched Cade back at the Skroll party. It’d make Cade’s retaliation worse, but at least he’d have a fucked-up nose or something to make me feel better. I follow Hayden’s breathing, though it’s heavy and angry, to calm myself enough to wipe my eyes, talk, put the pain into words.
He brushes away the tears with his thumb and hangs on to me tighter.
“What do you want me to do?” he finally says.
“What?”
“What do you want me to do? I don’t know,” he starts, his voice slipping into a frantic ramble. “I could…I don’t know, I could sue him if you want. He used a clip of our show without our permission. Or…I don’t like resorting to violence, but I’d totally punch him for you if you asked.”
“Hayden, you don’t have to do anything.” It’s not the answer he wants, because he restrains himself from fighting me on it. “You don’t. It won’t make a difference. He did this because we made him look bad. Because we were going to win.”
Going to .
Now, if our views tank because our viewers hate me, think I’m using Hayden for attention, or believe that I don’t love him with everything I have…Skroll could change their mind. I’d be a liability for them to keep around.
“I don’t want this asshole to get away with this, Hallie. He can’t just go around saying things like that about us, about you . It’s not true and he can’t just do that.”
“Cade does whatever he wants and he never pays for it. He’s never seen consequences for a single fucking thing in his life, Hayden. Whatever we say, he’ll spin it to make it about us. This is how…”
This is how I stayed for so long .
Because I am terrified of stepping out of line and of being seen—a fear that didn’t exist before Cade. I just wish it didn’t exist after Cade either.
“Okay,” he breathes, leaning his head back against the seat. His eyes flutter shut and he rubs the bridge of his nose under his glasses before returning to me. He wipes away my remaining tears and presses a kiss against the side of my head. “Then what can I do for you ?”
“I just want to go back to the hotel.”
Hayden slides out from under me and we climb into the front seat, driving back to our hotel room. It’s hardly a refuge, full of concerning-colored comforters and even scarier carpet, but at least it’s not a tent in the middle of the woods. The mosquitos are far less bountiful here. Since we missed our chance at Mothman pizza, Hayden disappears to find food for us once he knows I’m okay.
With him gone, I slide out my phone again and continue to read the comments that flood in. Cade shares the podcast episode and quotes on his page about eliminating toxic people from your lives, and the comments are full of supportive fans telling him to keep his chin up, ignore me and my negativity. Good for him for overcoming . We don’t talk about how women can hurt men enough.
I move to Hayden’s profile and find a picture of the two of us together. There are so many new comments, like people are desperate to swarm and tell him he’s better off without me. I wonder if his phone is buzzing constantly, too. I wonder if he’s reading any of this, and what’s going on inside his head.
I know it won’t do me any favors to look at my own comments. For every loving fan, I’m afraid there’s ten more mean troll-termites that’ll crawl out of the woodwork on me.
When I first discovered Hayden and The Out There , the entire point was to make it about him. He was going to be my show and I was going to guide him on a path to success. I was never supposed to share the spotlight. Now I do, and it could be the downfall of years and years of work.
I set the phone aside as the hotel room door opens again and he steps in holding a box of pizza in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. He slips off his hiking boots and jacket and places the pizza between us on the bed. I can’t help but smile because I already know what’s inside.
“This asshole is not going to keep us from our Mothman pizza,” he says, pouring a glass of wine for each of us into the flimsy plastic hotel cups. I sip at it, but wine out of a plastic cup tastes far worse. It’s just science, no conspiracy. Regardless, though, I am going to drink all of it.
Hayden leans over the side of the bed, grabbing my phone off the nightstand and placing it on silent beside his on the other side of the room. There’s a digital storm brewing for both of us, but he’s trying to make this as safe a shelter as he can. He’ll board up the windows and doors to keep anything that might knock me down or sweep me away at bay if he has to. He kisses my forehead and asks if I need anything else. I can only give him a weak shake of my head.
He flips open the pizza box, and I know I’m not the expert in the room, but this really doesn’t look like Mothman. Mothman stares back at me with weird little tomatoey eyes and a pepperoni body, an ungodly amount of mushrooms for wings, and scrawny bell pepper legs. I don’t know if I prefer this Mothman or the bootylicious one in the town square.
“I’ll let you take the first piece.”
“My hero,” I tease. I claim one of Mothman’s legs, which seems to have a somewhat proportionate amount of pepperoni and bell pepper. It’s not a New York slice by any means, but it’s the thought that counts, I think. Hayden claims a more shroom-smothered piece and we dig in and eat in silence for a few minutes. Half the bottle of wine and an inconsistent half of Mothman’s body are gone too quickly.
Both of our phone screens keep lighting up across the room and it’s painful not knowing what everyone is saying about it. But watching our follower counts drop, notifications rise, DMs filling up because one person wields so much power would hurt worse than holding back.
“Hallie, don’t pay them any mind. Please.”
“Are people spamming you, too?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
“With what?”
“Does it matter? No matter what we do, there are going to be people who have nothing good to say. I’ve been doing this long enough—”
“Sure, but what happens when this bullshit ruins our chances of winning? What happens when I am too much trouble for you to work with?”
His eyes soften and he sits up. Our knees brush against each other and he takes my hands in his. I stroke the outline of the UFO tattoo on his wrist, pushing the band of his watch out of the way. I think this might be the closest I come to believing in aliens, but at least I thought maybe I was starting to believe in myself again.
“I have spent the past five years talking about Bigfoot and aliens and that time that the US government researched astral projections, found monsters, and was like ‘well, fuck that .’ People are constantly picking fights with me online and I have plenty of enemies in the conspiracy theories community.”
“It’s a super weird community.”
“Yeah, sure is. But I don’t listen to them and they don’t get to tell me what to do. People are constantly telling me I’m an idiot—you included.” He tilts my chin up with a smile. “Remember what I said that first day we hung out at my apartment?”
My eyes widen. “Hayden, you gave me an entire PowerPoint presentation. You need to be more specific.”
“That some people just believe what they’re told. Others don’t.”
“We’ve already established that I’m not really a conspiracy theorist. I thought you knew that about me.”
Hayden wipes my eyes as another flood of tears drips down my cheeks. “I know that very well, Nonbeliever. But what I’m trying to say is that for this moment, it might help you to be a little out there like me.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s no reason you should listen to what this jerk-off says. Just because he says it, doesn’t mean it’s true. You can choose to not believe in him just like you don’t believe in Bigfoot, or aliens—”
“Or Mothman.”
“Ouch,” he hisses. “In his own hometown, even.”
“No mercy for Mothman.”
“See?” he laughs.
“It’s not that easy. I wish I could brush what Cade says off so easily. It’ll just be harder now that he’s got more people who believe him.” My phone continues to flash with a cascade of new notifications. I’m afraid of what every one of them will say.
Hayden draws me back to him. “I know it’s not, but I don’t want you to think about Cade. I don’t want him to get a second of your brainpower, because he doesn’t deserve it. He used your brilliance enough. We’ve created something amazing together. And there are always going to be naysayers who are quick to jump with their holier-than-thou attitudes, but there are also always going to be people who love what you bring to this show. I love what you bring to this show.”
The more I think about stepping in front of the camera, the more it makes my stomach churn. I want to keep hunting monsters I don’t believe in with someone I do believe in for as long as I can. I want to follow Hayden into the woods and complain the whole time, jab at all his theories until he sounds like he belongs in The Departed , and watch our success grow and know we did that. Together.
But with each win, I’m terrified Cade and the fears he’s planted will be right behind us, dragging me—no, us— down…and Hayden deserves more than that.
I think I do, too, but it seems like the only ghosts I do believe in are my own doubts looming over my shoulder and keeping my worth shoved down so far I don’t know how to show it off. I can’t imagine following Hayden out to Area 51 and hunting for aliens, pretending everything is fine and like I’m the brave girl who stands up to him all the time, who takes no shit. I thought I was her.
I’ve just been reminded that I’m not all the way there yet and that healing isn’t always linear. It’s full of Bermuda Triangles and wormholes and portals that I can’t explain, too. This is one of them. All I can hope is that I am one of those cases where there are answers on the other side.
For now, my brain just feels like a series of unhinged conspiracy theories about myself, and I’m not sure which of them is the truth.