Chapter Eight Meera
Chapter Eight
Meera
Meera doesn’t want to say I told you so—but the longer she listens to Talia speak, the more tempted she is to say it.
Meera expected to hear what she usually hears from Talia during their postweekend catch-ups: gushing proclamations about how thoughtful Townsend was, and how kind he was, and how well he treated her. She certainly didn’t expect a story about an encounter with the police and a missing ex-girlfriend.
It’s Monday, and the two are grabbing coffee at Manana around the corner from the Cuff office before heading into work.
From their table facing the door, Meera can see all the techy folks bustling in to grab their morning cold brew or cold-pressed juice before heading off to their jobs at Meta and Google.
She loves working in the Seaholm District, with its stark industrial aesthetic and energized feel.
What she doesn’t love: the idea of her best friend falling even deeper for a guy she knows to be bad news.
But instead of saying this—or I told you so—Meera says, “Tal, do you hear yourself? This is insane.”
“I know, I know.” Talia shakes her head. “But he was just as surprised by the police showing up at his door as I was. He didn’t seem to have any idea Amanda was missing—he just thought she was in Europe. He said they haven’t texted at all since their breakup.”
“And you believe him?”
“Yes, I do. He even showed the police their text history to prove it.”
“He could have just deleted all their recent texts.”
Meera sees a flash of annoyance in Talia’s eyes. “Yeah, and he could be having sex with five other girls behind my back. But I choose not to assume the worst in people.”
It’s becoming increasingly common for their conversations to take a turn like this, to go from light and playful to tense and strained with little warning. Meera hates it. She wants things to return to the way they were before Townsend reentered the picture.
Like most women Meera knows, Talia jumps into relationships with both feet.
(Meera doesn’t judge her for this; it seems so long ago now, but surely her own relationship with Hari started off just as intensely.) When Talia first met Townsend, he was all she could talk about, all she could think about—and in Talia’s eyes, he could seemingly do no wrong.
For six months this continued until things blew up in her face, and while their breakup didn’t bring Meera any pleasure (what kind of friend would she be if she delighted in Talia’s heartbreak?), it was a relief to have conversations revolve around something other than the life-and-death dramatics of Talia’s relationship again.
They could finally just shoot the shit about trivial matters—like who killed The Notorious B.I.G.
and whether or not Beyoncé pooped. They could just be Talia and Meera, two smart, accomplished women whose moods weren’t dictated by the amount of time it took a man to reply to their text messages.
But now Townsend is back, and if anything, his hold on Talia is even more powerful than it was the first time around.
Because Meera has never seen Talia in a relationship with someone else, it’s hard to say whether Townsend possesses some formidable influence or this is just the way Talia is with men.
Either way, the dynamic makes Meera uneasy.
It’s like sitting in the passenger seat of a car that’s destined to crash; there’s nothing she can do but brace for impact.
Eager to restore a genial mood, Meera says, “It’s called hostile attribution bias, apparently. Hari accused me of having it right around the time we got divorced. I’m just a mean ol’ misanthropist. That’s why I need you, my little optimist, to balance me out.”
Talia smiles at her from across the table. “Happy to be of service.”
Her annoyance seems to have been forgotten; Meera knows she should leave well enough alone. But still, she can’t ignore a certain nagging thought. “I hate to bring this up, but as a misanthropist, I have to ask something.”
“Uh-oh.” Talia takes a sip of her coffee and then leans back, crossing her arms. “Let’s hear it.”
“Have you considered the possibility that Townsend has talked to Amanda through something other than text?”
“Like what? Carrier pigeon?”
“He still has an active Cuff account, Tal. What if they’ve been messaging through the app?”
A strange look crosses Talia’s face—Meera can’t tell if she’s shocked by this idea or about to sneeze. After a beat, she asks, “How would I find that out?”
Before she can think better of it, Meera says, “I can pull up their message history on the database.”
“Meera.” Talia gives her a look that’s meant to say You know better than that. “That’s a major privacy breach. You could get fired for that.”
“Well, if it weren’t for you, I’d probably already be fired.
” When Meera was first diagnosed with Hashimoto’s a year ago, Talia covered for her on countless instances, explaining Meera’s absences to their boss when she had appointments to attend or was simply feeling too shitty to leave her bed.
Picking up the slack on projects Meera couldn’t finish in time.
Watering her sad, half-dead succulent in vain. “I’m happy to take the risk for you.”
“You shouldn’t,” Talia says. “Unless . . . you’re really sure you can do this without getting caught?”
Meera glances at her watch. “No one will be in for another half hour. Let’s do it now while we have the chance.”
Ten minutes later, they sit in the ML-team office, both gathered in front of Meera’s monitor. As Meera suspected, none of their coworkers are in yet, including the office custodian, Aarav, who’s usually here by now.
“You’re sure you don’t mind doing this?” Talia asks for what feels like the tenth time since they left the coffee shop.
“For you, not at all,” Meera says, “but you need to stop distracting me so I can do this.”
Once again, Meera logs on to the company database and types in Townsend’s name. There is all the info she saw last time, including his account status (still active).
“Look.” Talia points at the screen. “It says he hasn’t been on Cuff in nearly three weeks. He probably has no idea his profile is even active.”
“Maybe,” says Meera, “but we should still check out his conversation history.”
“Do you know how to pull up the chat log?”
“It should all be stored in a log file.” Meera quickly scans the page, and there it is: the entire chat history between Townsend Fuller and Amanda Reade, complete with dates and time stamps. “Should we go all the way back to the beginning?”
Talia shakes her head no. “I don’t need to see how things started. That would be too painful.”
“Okay. When did things end?”
Talia is quiet for a moment, her brow furrowed. “Based on what Townsend has told me, he broke up with her in early March.”
Meera nods and scans the log, working her way backward until she finds the first message where things seem to take a sour turn. “Here it is,” she says.
Amanda [Sun, Mar 3 at 8:20 PM]: Hey baby. Just want to remind you that your the love of my life.
Townsend [Sun, Mar 3 at 8:22 PM]: I am not the love of your life. I am not anything to you. This is done.
Amanda [Sun, Mar 3 at 8:34 PM]: We’re over?
Amanda [Sun, Mar 3 at 8:36 PM]: Seriously?
Amanda [Sun, Mar 3 at 10:12 PM]: Your going to be so fxcking sorry.
“Shocker that she doesn’t know the difference between ‘your’ the possessive adjective and ‘you’re’ the contraction,” Meera jokes.
Talia fails to laugh. Eyes glued to the screen, she says, “Keep scrolling.”
Together, they continue to read silently. From what Meera can see, Amanda harassed Townsend for months after their breakup, often sending twenty to thirty messages in a row before receiving even a single reply from him.
“Jesus,” Meera says under her breath. “This is fucking nuts.”
Amanda’s messages are a mix of beseeching and cold-blooded; a pathetic entreaty for Townsend to take her back would be followed minutes later with threats to go public about his start-up’s failings.
It doesn’t make any sense. It seems like the ravings of a madman—or, rather, a madwoman.
Meera glances at her friend, expecting to see her bafflement mirrored in Talia’s face, but Talia’s expression is entirely unreadable.
“Is his company not doing well?” Meera touches her finger to the screen. “Did you get to this part? What is she talking about here?”
“Shh. I’m reading.” Talia bats Meera’s hand away, still transfixed by the screen.
The last exchange between the two seemingly took place in mid-May, where nearly a dozen messages from Amanda were followed by just a single response.
Townsend [Sat, May 18 at 11:04 PM]: This is over. We are over. Leave me the fuck alone, or I will make you leave me alone.
A few minutes later, Townsend sent a photo, seemingly taken through the windshield of his car.
All Meera can see is a nondescript apartment building.
She looks closer, noticing something in the corner of the frame: a vague black shape sitting on the dashboard.
Something that looks very much like a gun.
Townsend [Sat, May 18 at 11:07 PM]: Don’t forget I know where you live. Don’t forget I know things about you, too. Things you’d never want to get out. This is your last warning.
These are the last words Townsend ever said to Amanda. A cold chill spreads through Meera’s chest.
“May eighteenth,” Talia says quietly. “That was the day I ran into Townsend at Town Lake. When he took me to Congress Avenue Bridge to see the bats fly. He must have sent this later that night.”
Beyond the surprise and uncertainty, Meera detects the slightest hint of pride in Talia’s voice. Like she’s pleased that her serendipitous romantic evening with Townsend was apparently so meaningful to him, he wasted no time shutting things down permanently with Amanda.
But Meera’s still focused on the intensity of the threat and what came after—or, rather, what didn’t come after. “There are no more messages from Amanda after that. Doesn’t that seem kind of odd, Tal?”
“She probably heard that Townsend and I got back together and decided to finally stop harassing him.”
“Heard from who? It’s not like they shared mutual friends.”
“I don’t know.” Talia shrugs. “She was clearly obsessed with him. She was no doubt stalking him too. Maybe she saw us together herself.”
“And you think she just decided to give up? After months of alternately threatening him and trying to get him back?”
Talia’s eyes flash angrily. “What are you implying?”
Meera has to tread carefully here; she doesn’t want to get Talia any more upset than she already is. “I just think it’s strange,” she says carefully, “that Townsend says he’s going to make Amanda leave him alone, and then suddenly, he never hears from her again. And now she’s missing.”
“So what the fuck are you saying?”
Talia so rarely curses that this catches Meera off guard. Before she can stop herself, she blurts out, “I’m saying, what if Townsend followed through on his threat?”
The sound of laughter carries from down the hall, and they both jump. Their coworkers are starting to arrive. Meera quickly exits out of the database and turns to face Talia again.
“You need to at least consider the possibility that Townsend is culpable here,” she hisses to her friend. “Okay? This shit is serious.”
“Okay,” Talia says, so softly Meera can barely hear her.
“Will you promise me to stay away from Townsend until we can figure out what’s going on here?”
“I—” Talia stands, still avoiding Meera’s eyes.
“Do you promise me?”
“I need a minute.” Without looking back, Talia scurries off toward the restroom, leaving Meera alone with Townsend’s threat still echoing in her mind.
A quick Google search later that night gives Meera the lowdown on Townsend’s company, AutoInTune—a start-up that proclaims to be “changing the tune for the autoimmune.” She reads through the company website, the launch announcement in Forbes, and the early glowing reviews (“Since becoming an AutoInTune member and taking a foundational approach to healing, I feel more energy and less pain than I’ve felt in years! ”).
Under different circumstances, Meera might’ve been impressed or even tempted to enroll herself—finally, a virtual solution for the millions of people like her living with an invisible illness! But she has reason to be skeptical about Townsend’s ethics. And apparently she’s not the only one.
In her search, Meera finds a Reddit comment about AutoInTune—a response to someone looking for information on Townsend linked to Amanda Reade’s disappearance. The user metrics seem like bullshit, it reads. Like a direct confirmation of Meera’s suspicions.
For a moment, she hesitates. Then she composes a message: Hi, LivingstonTheDream. Just curious what seemed off about AutoInTune’s data? Then she clicks send, unleashing her query into the digital universe.
There isn’t any need to tell Talia about this, Meera thinks to herself. In fact, it’s better if she doesn’t tell Talia about this. But if Townsend’s company is anything less than legitimate, Meera wants to know, even if the information is dangerous for her to have.
Looking in on her sleeping daughter before putting herself to bed, she hears his ominous words again: Leave me the fuck alone, or I will make you leave me alone . . . This is your last warning.
Meera may be a misanthropist, but she likes to think she knows a dangerous man when she sees one—and Townsend Fuller is, without a doubt, a dangerous man.