Chapter 5
James was a local, always living a comfortable, well-off life.
I came here for college and stayed for work, only managing to buy a small apartment after working for a few years.
After moving in with James, I had planned to sell my small place so we could buy a bigger apartment together.
Fortunately, due to the poor market conditions, the apartment hadn’t sold. Now I still had a place to return to.
As I took my clothes out of the boxes and hung them back in the closet one by one, the past few years felt like a dream.
Before I could catch my breath, my Instagram blew up with messages from strangers hurling insults at me.
It took me a while to piece together what was happening.
Nora’s new book had been released, and in it, she had written a heart-wrenching account of her relationship with James.
When they first fell in love, their passion was intense and all-consuming.
The explicit words in the book left little to the imagination, making readers blush.
The book claimed that even after Nora went abroad, their feelings hadn’t faded. Every brief encounter was worth more than countless ordinary moments.
And it all came to an abrupt end because of my appearance.
In the book, I was portrayed as someone who took advantage of the situation and would stop at nothing. All her deep, enduring love couldn’t compete with my shameless seduction.
Although she didn’t use real names in the book and repeatedly emphasized that it was all fiction, her eager fans still managed to find my Instagram account through the deliberate hints scattered throughout the text and began their barrage of insults.
What chilled me even more was that her book mentioned several times when she returned to the country to see James, which I calculated had all happened after James and I got together.
“When he waited for me, he stood under the kapok tree at the street corner. We embraced in the wind, melting in a moment of passion. In that instant, I still loved him.”
“Stir-fried green peppers with pork, spicy pig blood, ginger-spiced chicken feet - we drank two dozen ice-cold beers at a street stall. His lips were swollen from the spice, and I joked that this time it wasn’t my doing.”
I believe these were all true. The cities mentioned in the book perfectly matched the places where James had gone on business trips over the past few years.
When James pursued me, he and Nora had already been broken up for years. But now, in her book, she deliberately portrayed me as the one who broke them apart.
As the situation escalated, various strangers claiming to be former colleagues and classmates I didn’t recognize emerged online. They fabricated one story after another, painting me as someone who bullied classmates, seduced teachers, and flirted with clients, sparking wave after wave of verbal abuse.
Some even went as far as collecting this information, along with various vulgar images, compiling it into a 36-page document, and sending it to everyone in my company’s email list, urging my boss to fire me for my moral depravity.
I was about to confront James when he called.
“Sophia, are you still angry? Why did you move all your things out?”
Laughable. Now I wasn’t just angry, I was on the verge of exploding.
“Tell Nora to explain what’s going on with her book. I’m being cyberbullied. If she doesn’t clear things up, she can expect to hear from my lawyer.”
He paused for three seconds, then spoke slowly.
“Calm down, Sophia. You know how that circle works. Sometimes they need to write something sensational to get readers. The book clearly states it’s all fiction. Don’t take it to heart.”
“So, you knew what she wrote in the book all along? Did you approve of her smearing me?”
“She said her fans all know it’s fiction, and you know she needs a lot of money for her treatment right now. All the money from this book is for saving her life.”
“There are many ways to save her life. Dragging my name through the mud isn’t the only option. James, if I don’t see an explanation tomorrow, she can expect to receive a lawyer’s letter.”
“Do you really have to make such a big deal out of this? Sophia, you’ve changed.”
“Did you go to see her behind my back, James?”
“Let me explain…”
I hung up the phone and threw it on the couch, not wanting to hear another word of excuses.
Three years of relationship crumbled in an instant. I could no longer distinguish what was true or false in our past sweetness.
In my world, James was already dead.