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“I don’t know.” My heart races and my mouth goes dry. “Some of the people I see at my office are very troubled. Maybe someone formed an unhealthy attachment.”
“What a surprise.” Her lips pinch together in disapproval, deepening the vertical lines around her mouth.
She hates my profession and hates even more that I volunteer to work with sex offenders one day a week. When I insisted on majoring in psychology, she cut me off financially, and when I managed to make it on my own by waitressing, selling my artwork, and getting scholarships, she didn’t talk to me for an entire year. Once she came back, it was like she was making up for lost time—clinging to me, invading every little nook and cranny of my life like a weed.
“It’s a fake account. I’m going to contact Twitter immediately and get them to shut it down,” I say,furious that I have to explain this to her of all people.
“I warned you about that job.” Her flippant words are meant to grate.
Every opportunity she has to solidify herself as superior, she takes with relish. Even more annoying is how she picks at her perfectly manicured nails like she has no idea her words chip away at my composure.
“Yes, you did. And you still do. Every day,” I snap, and her eyes go wide with dismay.
She looks at me expectantly. For once, I don’t apologize, so she shoves her chair back, scraping it dramatically across the floor. “Well,” she says frostily, “I imagine you’ll be extremely busy working on getting that fake account taken down and apologizing to Landon, so I’ll just leave you to it.” She rises to her feet, waiting for me to beg her to stay.
Instead, I say, “Why would I apologize for something I didn’t do?”
She spins on her heel and stalks off.
I pull out my laptop and send a request to Twitter customer support, demanding that the fake account be taken down. Then I call Landon.
My Landon. My rock. The best thing that ever happened to me.
When I call him, he already knows about the Twitter account—because my mother told him. Fury twists inside me.
Why would she do that?
Why does she encourage me and sabotage me in equal measure? He and I don’t argue often, but when we do, she’s usually behind it somehow, and she sides with him every time.
“I didn’t create the account, Landon. I swear.”
He sighs on the other end. “The thing is, Camille, the poem makes it sound like you don’t want to marry me. Who would know you well enough to post something so personal?”
I feel a deep, pained hurt.
“Being as though the poem isn’t true, anyone who knows I’m engaged could concoct such a thing.”
He grunts. “Pretty sick and twisted if that’s the case.”
My heckles rise at his unconvinced tone.
“My mother just implied I was lying to her,” I say. “Are you calling me a liar too?”
“No, not at all,” he says. “Of course not. Never. It’s just…” He lets the pause stretch out a little too long. “I don’t understand why somebody would do this.”
“Neither do I, but I work with a population of people with mental illnesses.”
“If someone is cyberstalking you, then you need to call the police,” he says firmly. “I’ll go with you. Tonight after work? I’ll be at your office at five to pick you up.”
I love Landon, but I don’t love the way he makes plans and assumes I’ll go along with them. “The police?” I echo faintly. Cyberstalking? Isn’t this an overreaction? There was one account with a few tweets. “I contacted Twitter. Let’s just see if this ever happens again.”
He’s quiet for several painstaking minutes, and I wonder what’s going through his mind.
“If you didn’t write it, don’t you want to catch the person who did?”
“IfI didn’t write it?” I say, suddenly furious. “Landon, if you think I’m lying to you, then we’ve got a serious problem. You’ve known me for a year. If you not only think I would spill my guts on social media like an angsty teenager but then also lie to you about it, then you shouldn’t be marrying me.” I hang up the phone, my heart thundering in my ears.
I force myself to eat some of my chicken salad sandwich because I skipped breakfast, and I feel light-headed. Not even two minutes later, my mother calls me, livid at what I just said to Landon. She’s yelling into the phone.
