“Naturally, I started to feel bad about myself and I wanted some positive attention. So, I downloaded some dating app and started swiping. Almost everyone was a dud, except for this one guy.” Oh boy, here it was. I steadied myself, willing my temper not to spike. “He was handsome, a cop, and when I did some snooping, I found out that he was a real golden boy of the community.
“Of course, I agreed to a date after that! He took me to a great Mexican place and honestly, it was enchanting. Great conversation, he listened. I thought I had found a Prince Charming, and when he dropped me off at home, he gave me a kiss and wished me goodnight.” I belatedly thought it might not be the best time to tell James about my past crush and how great he thought I was, but it wasn’t like I was in a relationship with the billionaire.
“I went to bed excited and finally feeling better about my life, but the next day when I went to friend him, I couldn’t get into any of my social media. I had to reset all of my passwords via my back up emails, and by the time I got it all together, I found that almost all of my photos had been deleted, strange statuses had been posted and a bunch of messages were sent to random people.
“It took me all day to do damage control, but eventually I got it right and put it out of my mind. Jason and I started texting, planning our next date, and I offered to come over and cook for him.
“We set it all up for that weekend and I was on a cloud. But then, about the middle of the week, I came out of the grocery store to find all of my tires slashed. By then I was starting to be suspicious but ti was too late.
“Turns out that Jason’s ex was not nearly as charming, and she was determined to ruin me so she could get back with him. Of course, I didn’t find that out right away. By the time I did figure it out, she had already done too much damage.
“Posters all over town posted lies about me, rumors and edited screenshots of my social media were spreading to all the younger people in town. She knew the social network and I didn’t, plus she had that latent hometown racism on her side.
“It all happened so fast. In two weeks, I went from a nobody in town -which is how I liked it- to infamous. I hated it. Everywhere I went, there were whispers and looks. I had no peace, and I was constantly getting nasty messages online.
“But then, when someone wrote my number in several bathroom stalls around town, I couldn’t take it anymore. I went to Jason and I asked him for help. His ex was out of control and I needed his help. He was a cop after all, who better to help me?”
I snorted at that, remembering how naïve I had been back then. I had been so sure that he was going to help me. How wrong I had been.
“I will never forget how he looked at me, like I was the stupidest woman that he had ever met. He told me that it wasn’t really his business, and since he was trying to get the promotion to deputy, he couldn’t risk his reputation dealing with a civilian matter.
“I tried to argue with him, telling him that it was his ex who was doing all of this and if he had warned me about her in the first place, that none of this would ever have happened. He said that he had no way of knowing this would happen since his ex had left him alone for the past month.
“I couldn’t believe it. I thought I could trust this guy and he sold my reputation out for a stupid promotion that he didn’t end up getting anyways! So, I tried to survive. I tried to keep my head down and just find a job.”
I laughed at that, but it was dry and bitter. “I thought that it couldn’t get any worse, ya know. That I had hit the proverbial rock bottom. But then the rumors hit my mother’s bible study and someone broke the window in her car.
“That was apparently the line for her, because she wanted me out. She said I was ruining her place in town and that I always came off like I thought I was better than everyone else. We’ve mostly made up about it now, but it crushed me then. My last vestige in the world was gone.
“So that’s why I left and went to Vegas. I wanted to go somewhere so completely different where I would just be a cog in the machine and no one would know me from Eve.” I chuckled again, thoroughly amused. “And we all know how that went.”