Chapter 41
CHAPTER
I’M STRAPPED TO a metal table, leather strips cinched around my forehead, chest, waist, and thighs.
Above, a gleaming blade slices through the air, from head to toe.
It makes whizzing sounds as it lowers. I struggle, thrash, but can’t break free.
Why are you doing this, I scream as the pendulum parts the air, so close that my nostrils fill with the tang of hot steel.
Aletheia’s accented voice calmly replies, I’m protecting you. No matter what.
I wake, sweat soaked, roll over, and check my phone, then iPad.
Aletheia’s icon isn’t there. It takes a snuggle with Sally and a cold shower to wash away the nightmare’s sticky threads.
Aletheia is gone. But as I dress in tan cargo pants and a white collared jersey, a line from Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum,” a short story Circe did a book report on last year, returns …
I had but escaped death in one form of agony, to be delivered unto worse than death in some other.
A sense of foreboding gnaws. “It was just a bad dream,” I tell Sally. She trots off to wake Circe while I distract myself cooking breakfast.
When my daughter comes to the kitchen table, she’s frowning, despite Sally following at her footsteps, tail wagging. “Morning, sunshine. What’s up?”
“It’s just … I didn’t check my DMs last night, but pretty much everyone I know got the same one from someone named Aletheia with a gross photo and nasty hashtags.”
Aletheia’s last karmaquence did go out before I terminated her program. I shift my voice into neutral despite the relief rocketing through me. “Of what?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s just. You think you know someone and that they’re a good person, and then realize they’re not. It’s a total bummer.”
I put a plate of blueberry pancakes in front of my daughter with a pitcher of warmed syrup. “Yeah, I know what that’s like.”
Circe looks up. “Where’s your breakfast?”
It feels like she might be seeing me, not just as a mom, but as a person for the first time. I grab a plate, sit down, and have breakfast with my daughter. What took me so long? Despite Aletheia’s missteps and frightening desire for revenge, overall, she’s changed my life for the better.
We walk to the high school together, Sally between us.
Circe lets me take a photo of them, only protesting a little.
I don’t post it to LivLoud. I haven’t posted in a long time and am down five thousand followers.
A month ago, that would’ve worried me and felt like I was losing important friends.
But the people who followed me didn’t even know who I really was.
“Have a good day,” I say when we near the school.
Even I know it’s not cool to enter high school with your mom, though Circe doesn’t seem to mind that I’m working in the office again.
Maybe she understands more than I give her credit for.
Still, I do realize that we’re on a long path toward creating a new normal.
I’m early, so Sally and I wander onto the sports field and meander around the track.
A small bunny hops from a bush, and Sally points at it, tail quivering, then slowly stalks forward.
Maybe in her earlier life she was a hunting dog.
We all have our secrets. When it’s time, we walk back toward the school and across the asphalt parking lot.
A white Porsche Cayenne is pulling away from the drop-off curb, Kiki at the wheel.
The car slows and our eyes meet. Kiki’s expression is pained.
I hesitate, then turn away. Her engine guns as she quickly drives off and my insides crumble like a stale croissant.
But I would’ve told her if I’d discovered Chris was cheating.
And that photo of Wess? In her shoes, I do have to admit that I might’ve risked our friendship to protect my daughter.
The mother bear is real. I swallow down a wave of sadness.
The truth is that I miss Kiki. But too much has happened, and some situations just can’t be fixed.
When I enter the school office, it’s chaos. The phone rings nonstop with concerned parents who have seen Aletheia’s post about Wess on LivLoud. Lindy is red-faced and frazzled.
“No, we don’t know who Aletheia is, but we’re trying to find out,” she says, then picks up the next call.
“Yes, I understand your concern. We’ve called LivLoud.
They’ve tried to cancel Aletheia’s account, but so far, no results,” she tells another angry parent.
“It appears that the account has some sort of encryption that’s stymieing tech support, but they’re working on it … ”
I can hear the next caller shouting from ten feet away.
Lindy, one hand pulling at her neat bob, reiterates, “Yes, every student and parent, even if they didn’t choose to do so, appears to follow her.
Yes, we will keep you posted.” The moment she hangs up, her phone rings again.
“All hands on deck,” Lindy says with a grim nod at my own phone.
Every call button is lit. “I assume you already know about the post from Aletheia?”
I nod, feign shock, and feel like a terrible actress. I should be horrified. What does it mean that I’m not?
“Some parents want Aletheia’s account shut down, but the ones with daughters want to know what’s going to happen to Wess,” Lindy says.
“What is going to happen to him?” I ask.
“His parents have already withdrawn him from school. Dr. Boone is relieved that he doesn’t have to wade into those litigious waters. Wess is a senior, so my guess is that he’ll get a GED and try to put this behind him.”
I take a seat, slide my chair into the desk, and try not to sound afraid. “A lot of students sext.”
Lindy meets my gaze with knowing sympathy.
“It’s pervasive and we can’t catch them all, so Dr. Boone’s policy is to deal with situations in-house and leave the authorities out of it.
Wess is different, though. This one is too public, and he was putting girls at risk.
The police had to be notified.” She grimaces.
“I would’ve killed that kid if he’d given one of my girls an STD. ”
The phones lines are lighting up and we turn to the task at hand. Around eleven, the calls slow to a trickle, and I take Sally out for a walk around the campus.
“Penn?”
It’s Emi. She’s wearing one of Val’s dresses, the checkered one, and her blond hair is in a French braid. “Hey, Emi. This is Sally.”
Emi kneels and pets my dog. “She’s a cutie. Um, are you okay?”
I smile. “Pushing through.”
“You’ve always been so awesome to me,” Emi says. “I loved hanging at your house. It felt like being part of a real family, you know?”
“Families are all different,” I say. Despite betraying me, Val loves Emi desperately. “You and your mom are a family, too.”
Emi shrugs one shoulder. “Maybe my mom’s right that most men are assholes. I mean, look what Bruce did, and Wess, too.”
Inside I flinch, but of course she knows that Bruce cheated on me.
Emi kisses the top of Sally’s head. “I don’t think that I’ll ever have a serious boyfriend or get married. Mom says it’s way overrated.”
I wonder how Val dealt with Aletheia’s anonymous DM about Emi sexting.
My guess? She laid down the law, and explained exactly what she thinks most teenage boys want from a girl.
Val’s not one to mince words. That’s something I always admired.
But she’s always been cynical. Maybe it’s the result of getting pregnant young.
That a relationship didn’t work out with her boyfriend.
She’s never shared the details—at least not with me.
Kiki probably knows all of it. I push away the green monster that still bites at times.
I just hope Val’s cynicism doesn’t rub off on Emi.
She’s the sweetest of Circe’s friends. I’ve watched her grow up—the first to share a toy, her bike, a favorite sweater or cookie.
Her kindness opened the door in elementary school for bullies to walk through.
It got so bad that Val pulled her from school for a few months and got her counseling.
When Emi returned, Charlotte and Circe were her protectors.
As Emi pets Sally, all the things I love about her flood in.
When she slept over, she always helped clear the dinner dishes and dried the pots after I washed them.
Sometimes, when Char and Circe were posting on their phones or texting friends, she sat with me in the study, and we played Scrabble.
When I hugged her before bedtime, something Circe had mostly outgrown, she held on extra-long.
In the morning, I always found her bed made.
Emi’s need to please and garner approval is something I relate to.
Now, Emi looks so sad that I open my arms, and she folds into them. “Don’t make any decisions about relationships for a while,” I say and kiss the top of her head. “No matter what, always hold on to the parts of yourself that you love. Promise?”
“Promise,” Emi replies.
If Aletheia were listening, she’d tell me that Emi’s answer is at best 40 percent truthful. She’d be right, of course. Mothers cast a shadow that’s hard to escape. Mine was a liar, cunning, and at times, ruthless.