By Marissa Higgins
At the second to last bus stop before you reach your office, you register a free email address. Your phone freezes on the screen reminding you the account will auto-delete delete in 24 hours. When you huff, the man across the aisle gives you a look like he would rub your shoulder and look down your blouse if you offer him even a smile. You turn your body toward the window and refresh your phone. The screen does not budge. You close the tab. You open an Incognito window. You restart your phone, bitter. You need to make an account. You can’t keep all of this in today; the sun is too bright in the cold. The dream hurts were bad last night. If you looked in mirrors, you would witness purple-glazed circles beneath your eyes. At the bus stop, you, for the first time, use your work email address. Who gives a shit, you think.
On the app, you register a new account. Just letters and numbers for the username, whatever the algorithm suggests. You upload the picture you always do: a graphic you saved from Google with the text BELIEVE SURVIVORS in a pink font you’ve grown to tolerate. In the months you’ve been sending your altered confessions, you’ve fantasized about using your own photo. The headshot your office paid for the staff to take, so you all look uniform on the website. White backgrounds give great light, you were told, but your face appears as it is: a swollen question. The headshot, and you, have been at the job for five years; enough to earn you donuts and a gift card on your anniversary, and, more importantly, to be left mostly alone.
In the two city blocks it takes you to scamper from the bus stop to your office, you type out what happened to you. Tap, tap, tap. Bigger bodies bump you but with two hands focused your little screen stays secure in front of you. You type what happened, you do. It’s real, you write, it’s real. It’s real. Well. You alter it a little. Altered confessions are your norm. You aren’t sure how other people navigate the website, but the very first post you made, what, six months ago? That one got the worst comments. Horrified people messaged you, so sad and scared for you and of you. Lots of creeps envied what happened to you; they wanted to do it to you, too. The posts sit realer than a truth that changes with age.
I was __ years old. I wore __, ___, and just __. It was the summer before I went to __. When it was over, I __. Every day I ___. At night, I ___. You reread the draft in your head. Nearby, a pigeon scoops a bagel half from a man who invaded its space. You hear the man yell at the bird to fuck itself. You post.
In the office, there are many kinds of lemonade. Pink lime lavender roasted peach mint blackberry honey mango guava carrot thyme. You pour one of each into the plastic cups the administrator stacks for the team. Enjoy, she says, four times a month. You love that consistency. You could purchase the lemonades at the Safeway down the street from your office, the same one that’s down the street from your 1-bedroom apartment, but you don’t. If you get too used to something good, you know, sweet spoils into sour.
At your desk, you pull up the website on your desktop. You do your checks: In your post, there are twelve periods, six commas, one em-dash, and one ampersand. In less than two hours, you have 87 shares. Holy hell, a stranger commented. His comment has two likes. No new followers. Sitting on the toilet in the bathroom on your office floor; they’re all single stall and gender-neutral, now, which you appreciate, you retweet yourself. You forget to piss, but you do put your phone down long enough to wash your hands.
Outside of the bathroom, hands still damp, you are intercepted. Your coworker with the skinny face tells you he’s sorry, you’re brave, he had no idea. You should have taken at least some time off, he tells you. He repeats that you deserve a break. You remember his desk: beside a Pride flag and ally stickers, framed photos of his wife and daughters. Those narrow faces hold practiced joy and learned uncertainty. In the hallway across from him, you wonder.
You ask, How did you find me?
Oh, he says, the line of his mouth revealing he knows he wandered into a secret. Well. Your account came up as suggested.
Suggested, you say. At forty, you do not expect your life to open in quite this way. You put your hand to your stomach; it feels ripe. Your therapist told you to listen to your body more. If you feel sick, she said, it might be wilted lettuce, but it might also be your body trying to protect you. You believe your body might try to protect you, but you can’t understand why it would want to survive.
On the sidebar, he says. He gestures in the air, as though the screen is in front of you, all futuristic. You know what he means, and you tell him as much. He looks so relieved, like a boy.
Right, you say. I wonder if that’ll happen with everyone who works here. You feel yourself release a spot of urine. The drop stays a circle then blossoms outward. Your underwear absorbs less than you imagine it might, but nothing leaks onto your legs. You, too, are relieved.
Your coworker laughs, then looks worried for you. Well, he says. It’s probably based on the social connections The emails and who knows who. He uses air quotes. When you laugh, you piss a little more. If he can smell it, he says nothing. But really, he says. You should have taken some time. I had no idea, I mean, you were working like nothing happened.
Does that qualify, you ask. You hadn’t thought to check the extended leave guidelines. You figured this sort of thing would be an excuse to fire you. After all, what if you got a reputation as a woman who spoke up? And this was to happen, in some sort of fashion, in the workplace? You’d be fired so fast. You would, you would. To the man, you make your eyes wider, to show him you are thankful for his input, for his big ideas.
Oh, he says. Well, no. I don’t think so. But it should. When he motions his head back to the cubicles, you give him a nod of understanding, and he does not reach in for a hug. You think he deserves his ally sticker after all.
At your desk, your full bladder is a comfort. Your notifications get wonky. You tell yourself to read the comments later, when the thrill of this validation settles into mediocrity. In your professional email, a note from a journalist whose signature identifies her as an advocate, millennial, and cat lover. Her message reassures you she works for a progressive, women-focused and women-led organization; she wants your consent to include your story in her roundup. The internet lets us be so honest, she adds. It’s a revolution in itself. When you look up the outlet, you see one woman on the executive board. You click away and push on your bladder, testing what you can contain.
On the website, you write the truth. That is, the details you remember in the way you remember on that day. The incidents merge, of course. Your therapist says the brain protects itself but you think, with time, everything becomes a memory of a memory and then of a dream. The app doesn’t let you post; you’ve gone over the limit by two thousand characters. You tap your tight belly. You edit. You click off and on the screen. In the sidebar, notifications build. You edit. You make the story smaller and smaller. When it fits, you go back to the reporter. You ask her what anonymity means, what it looks like to protect a self you aren’t sure you know. Within minutes, she offers to give you a call and talk it over.
When you post the story that fits, a man with FEMINIST in his screen name says he’s sorry, but he doesn’t get this one. Weird, he says, not trying to be a dick though!!! His comment gets 13 likes, then 40, then 65. You release your urine clench by clench into your damp underwear and drink your lemonade. Around you, happy office gossip and the clank of plastic bottles. You reread what made the cut: and then and after and then and after and then and after and then and after and then and after and then and after and and and and and
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Marissa Higgins is a lesbian journalist and 2020 D.C. Arts & Humanities grant awardee. Her fiction appears in The Florida Review, Lost Balloon, LEON, and elsewhere. Her nonfiction has appeared in the Best American Food Writing 2018 (originally in Captault), Guernica, Slate, NPR, the Washington Post, Atlantic, and beyond. She is working on a novel. You can find her on Twitter at marissahiggins_.