Drowning In Bitterness - (3) The Trap
Part 3 of 7 - TOC
The Trap
By 3:00 AM, the self-satisfaction had soured. Now it sat in her chest. Like a stone. She opened a new draft and started typing. Silence is just another way of giving up, isn’t it? She added a laughing emoji. Deleted it. Added a winking emoji. Guess you can’t handle the truth. No, bad, she thought. No hard feelings. Bakspace backspace backspace. She opened a tab with ChatGPT to look for a good quote. The best revenge is to not become like the one who inflicted the injury. Marcus Aurelius. That made her feel smart. Posted. She stared at the message until she hated herself. She was the injury. She knew it. She had struck first. In the dark screen, her reflection looked tired—hair greasy at the roots, the purple strand she’d dyed to look artistic looked just silly. Her finger hovered over the delete button. Hovered.
A new ping, but not from the feed. An email. The subject line was tight and impersonal: VANE — Newsletter Preview: Tomorrow 9:00 AM. Her stomach tightened. The preview text underneath: On reviewers who mistake maliciousness for a unique voice.
She didn’t click to read it. Didn’t need to. Her hands went numb anyway. The draft on her screen looked pathetic now, like an animal rolling over on its back for a hunter who hadn’t even raised the gun.
She closed the screen.
Because she was scared.