T W E N T Y - O N E

NEW YORK CITY, NY

FOUR MONTHS LATER

          It's well into October that something happens.

          Court-wise, I've flown to Los Angeles twice and, though we all knew it would be a lengthy, non-linear process because, unfortunately, Adam has a little bit too much influence than any of us would've liked, I can sense the discomfort and the frustration surrounding me. Everyone is exhausted, highly aware his team is trying to stall for as long as possible, and it will never be as cut and dry of a case because of what they're referring to as 'nuance'.

          There's no nuance. This man assaulted me, threatened me, and is horrified about being faced with a world where he has to deal with the consequences of his (illegal) actions. He's entitled and has always gotten everything he's ever wanted, choosing to see me as a minor inconvenience in his life he could ignore or threaten out of existence so I wouldn't be his problem anymore, but I vowed I'd ruin him, and here we are.

          Like Madonna wisely once said, I'm a cockroach. You can't get rid of me that easily.

          The comforting thing in the middle of all of this is the realization that I'm not alone in this process. Legal team aside (not that I'm not immensely thankful for everything they've been doing for me, someone with no legal knowledge whatsoever), having my father's support has proved to be the foundation for my resilience. Even Michelle, who hasn't been as present as she wants to be since she's gone back to school in August, somehow finds a way of providing help and moral support, but part of me still feels like something is missing. At first, I couldn't figure out what the missing piece was, but then I turned to Sadie and realized exactly what it was.

          There are things I should be able to talk to my mother about. It's maternal support that I need, a maternal figure that stands tall next to me and envelops me in a protective cocoon, promising she won't let any further harm come to me. Years ago, when I wasn't speaking to her and sat alone in a room, wishing things hadn't turned out that way, I had never felt so unbearably alone without her there. It was the kind of thing she should've supported me through, and I know now she was well aware I was suffering, even if she didn't know the reason. Part of being a parent is showing up for your children even when they don't ask you to, and she couldn't even do that.

          Like with everything else, it's different now.

          I don't need my mother now the way I used to need her years ago and I don't try to fool myself into believing she cares about me and what happens to me, even if her love language happens to be tough love. This isn't her giving me space to heal and breathe—this is her distancing herself for her own sake, removing herself from the narrative before she's dragged into what she thinks is the mess I've created and I ruin her reputation like I'm doing to Adam. There's no way in hell she doesn't know about the ongoing trial, not when Adam has been under her wing for so many years, and news travels fast in our world.

          I try to not let it bother me, though. Even when we finally get a verdict in October and it's not what I was hoping for—I wanted a serious, heavy conviction, but I'm lucky we even got a felony to be considered in court—I pretend to not be bothered that my own mother doesn't care about it. Processes like this usually take a long time to sort out, with stalling from both sides to try and strengthen their arguments or find a deal, and she hasn't reached out once. It's like I don't even exist.

          There have been times in my life when I made the damning mistake of stopping to think about whether or not I was being unfair towards her, for expecting her to drop everything to get to me, for wanting her to be caring and to love me like mothers are expected to. I thought maybe we ask too much of our mothers in general, that some women simply don't know how to be mothers, and there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that (it's not a woman's 'second nature' to be a mother; women don't owe anyone children if they don't want to be mothers and, even if they do, it's their child).

          Then, I realized she knows how to be a mother, and has been a loving, doting mother to Michelle. All those years I spent longing to receive a fraction of the motherly love Michelle has had her whole life, were years spent chasing a comet. It was always so close, yet so out of reach, and that's what has always been frustrating—I kept thinking there was something wrong with me that made me unlovable, like I was the practice run for the daughter she wanted to have and mold after herself.

          There's nothing wrong with me. I've never asked for any of this, I've never asked for anything besides a family, including my mother, and all she has done is shun me and treat me like utter crap. I don't know if it's because I've never conformed to her lifestyle, because I question her decisions, because I don't let her get away with being a manipulative narcissist, or if it's a combination of multiple factors. This isn't meant to be a dig at Michelle, as we have different personalities and she and my mother have always clicked in a way I used to be jealous of—and it was so easy for them to get along, too, which only helped further my feelings of inadequacy—but I wanted to be like her so badly.

          Then, I walked away. I chose to walk away from all of this, coercion aside, and the distance I've put between the two of us has only cemented the belief that I did the right thing. You can't force people to love you, even if they're related to you. It will shatter your heart and your self-esteem in ways you never thought possible, but it's one of those things you learn how to live around, and you'll find people who truly, truly love you. And that will be the greatest feeling in the world.

          To look on the brighter side, Adam is gone for a whole year in county jail, and has been fined for a few thousands of dollars. I don't need the money and keep part of it for rent and personal purposes, donating the rest to charities that will know what to do with it, but my thirst isn't quite satisfied. There's a part of me that feels it might not be over yet, even if the legal part is done and dusted, and there's still a long path ahead in the road to full recovery. I thought the healing was done, too, but reliving those memories has set me back, and I've been trying to get back on track ever since leaving Los Angeles.

          Los Angeles didn't break my heart. It's too big of a city for me and my insignificance to matter, in the greater spectrum of things, and I can no longer blame all the pain brewing and sizzling inside of me on this place. In a way, I'll always resent it, since it houses so many shattering memories that I can't seem to let go of, and it will be a while before I ever get the courage to come back, but it's not the city's fault. It's the people's—Adam, my mother, those vile lawyers.

          Los Angeles, I'm sorry. Los Angeles, I never want to see you again.

          My dignity and character suffered heavy damage in court, after having my lack of consent doubted and debated for hours on end, after being slut-shamed and accused of being a liar, and I thought I was self-assured enough to not let those things get to me, but they still seeped through the cracks in my armor. It takes a lot longer and a lot more effort to build myself back together again after all that's happened, after all the bruising, and there are times I fear I won't ever be fully whole.

          I don't celebrate the outcome. It still doesn't feel real to me—or fair, even—and my brain is so foggy from trying to fight the self-doubt that it convinces itself none of this ever happened to me—it happened to someone else instead, and there's no valid reason for me to care or even to be happy we even got a conviction in the first place. It's more than I ever thought we'd get a few months ago, when I was still on the fence about coming forward, and it's certainly more than Rebecca ever thought she'd live to witness all those years ago. I was asked why I waited so long to come forward, which infuriated me, but I'd seen it coming.

          I'm not looking at it as the beginning of the rest of my life. It's been the fight of my life, that's for sure, but it's not over yet. Every day of my life moving forward, I'll have to keep choosing to step forward and not get discouraged whenever I inevitably give in to my old ways or have a terrible day; after all, no one ever said it was easy and, not to Chris Martin my way out of this, no one ever said it would be this hard, either. Adam will get out eventually, and it's my goal to become the best version of myself I possibly can within that time frame as a gotcha! moment for him so he can see he won't win.

          If there's one thing in this world that I am, it's petty and spiteful.

          So, I deal with it the best way that I can: I drink my weight in vodka lemonades, my new best friends, at three in the afternoon. However, even that momentary buzz is short-lived, as Sadie yanks my cup right off my hand, holding her phone with her free one, taking advantage of my delayed reaction.

          "Sorry to ruin your day, but we need to talk," she blurts out, with the casual confidence of someone who has never been sorry for interrupting my day drinking. "We're going back to New York first thing in the morning instead of flying later in the afternoon."

          "The horror," I retort, reaching out my greedy little hands towards my cup like a gremlin. She moves it away from my reach, and I slump over the small round table separating us. "Sades. That's my best friend. You're keeping us apart."

          "I booked you an audition, so you have a few hours to sober up and get it together. This isn't something you want to butcher." She notices the panicked look I shoot towards my still full cup, sighs, and downs it without hesitation. As I protest and flail my arms around like the composed person that I am, she scowls. "You're the one who wanted the role, so I went ahead and got you the audition. Don't give me that attitude."

          "There are many roles I want. You'll need to be a bit more specific."

          "The lead in the Romero short film."

          I spill the salt shaker all over the table.

⊹˚. ♡

          I've never been particularly great at auditions.

          I'm good at my job—I'm good enough to remain employed and to find new jobs one after the other—and I'm good at playing the part people expect me to, depending on the tone demanded by the role I'm auditioning for. I can appear confident and charming, the version of me that is well known and documented, or I can dim my light until I'm the sweet little wallflower that just wants to be noticed. It's rare that I get to just be me and, with all the identity crises I've been having since LA, I've been dreading going to one of these things out of fear of choosing the wrong persona and fumbling the audition.

          This one feels different.

          It's something that spoke to me the first time I skimmed through the project notes, resonating within me like no other role had ever managed to do, and Girlhood is something that has been living rent free in my brain since then. Now that it's actually moving forward, sponsored and directed by Guillermo Romero himself, it feels hauntingly real, and I don't feel confident enough in my acting abilities to ever do the role justice. It feels disingenuous to try to replicate someone else's trauma in front of a camera for profit, even if the purpose is to tell a story through a different medium, but I know Guillermo's daughter, Penelope, would never accept playing the role herself. It feels too fresh, too personal.

          I get it. I get it. I get the open wound feeling that comes with the catharsis of pouring your heart out into your art. I know that feeling all too well.

          The first role I ever booked was as the victim of the week in one of those crime shows that have been around for years at this point, and rumor had it you had to experience that kind of environment if you wanted to make it big, so naive little me went for it.

          I was a fresh face, a nobody with no strings attached or known emotional baggage, and the role was fairly fine, generally speaking; I wasn't mistreated on set, did my job, memorized my lines and my cues, and haven't thought much about it to this day because neither it or I were too memorable. It's a bit sad, though, to not have too many long lasting memories of the role that kick started my career, but there's something that has stuck with me ever since.

          The actor playing the coroner had this monologue about exit wounds, particularly gunshot wounds (my cause of death in that episode), as he explained to the other characters and, therefore, to the audience, what they meant.

          With gunshot wounds, the exit wounds tend to be larger and more irregular than entry wounds thanks to the trajectory of the bullet through the body and everything it rips through in its path while moving that fast. It'll find resistance—after all, bodies are trained to protect themselves and will go to great extents to ensure survival—and will shatter, but leaves a trail of destruction in its wake.

          You can cover up the entry wound all you like, make it pretty and small until you can't see it, but if you look at the exit wound, you'll be able to see all the damage on display. Exit wounds tell stories, even more elaborate ones than you'd think, and you're missing out on the full picture if you don't check them.

          That rings true for me, too; I stayed so focused on pretending to be okay after what Adam did and after being exiled that I didn't stop to think about all the ways it was affecting my life in less obvious ways. As time went by and I got better, I also allowed myself to look at the wound from the back and to examine the extent of the damage. I found ways of coping that didn't include ignoring it. I licked the wound clean, bandaged it, and told it it was okay to heal.

          I eventually realized Adam wasn't the only bullet, and there had been many others piercing through my body in other areas—my mother, my father's refusal to see me, Michelle and I drifting apart, my personal life being in shambles, Rebecca—which meant there were other wounds I needed to tend to. So, I've been pouring everything I have, everything that reminds me of them, into my art—the roles I choose, the projects I support, the silly screenplays I write on my own.

          Like Penelope Romero, I get it. Sometimes, you just have to pour it all out to process it, but you need to learn to distance yourself from it at some point.

          I show up to the audition shaking like an earthquake (this is not the Bay Area, brain) because this isn't simply a role I want; it's also a role I need. I momentarily considered I could've been chasing it for all the wrong reasons—wanting to make it fit me and my particular traumatic experiences instead of hers, wanting to recover in the place of someone else instead of focusing on myself—but Sadie's wake-up call reminded me of why I wanted it in the first place.

          I want it because it's as personal to Penelope as it would be to me if I had written a screenplay. I want it not because I don't want to live through her, but because I want to understand other people's experiences. I want it because I truly believe it's a story that deserves to be told and to reach a bigger number of people, and getting it out of paper will help.

          She's there in the audition room, sitting behind a desk, tall and lanky like her mother, but tries to make herself smaller by hunching forward, crossed arms pressed against her stomach, dark hair forming a curtain between her and everyone else. She makes no eye contact with anyone in the room, not even with me when I let myself in, and her bangs help keep her face partially obscured. My heart breaks just by looking at her, thinking about what she has been put through, and it dawns on me why she titled the screenplay Girlhood.

          What is girlhood if not this? What is girlhood if not something else that can be taken away from you without permission? What is girlhood if not a divine thing that is weaponized against you? What is girlhood if not something you reject early on only for you to be overcome with a desperate desire to get it back once you realize all you've missed out on?

          What is girlhood if not a constantly bleeding open wound? How do you measure the damage left behind through that exit wound?

          "Name?" a woman asks.

          "Harley Kane," I reply, squaring my shoulders. Penelope raises her stare for a split second. "I'll be reading for the role of Her."

THE END

⊹˚. ♡

i can't say what penn's short film is about because that's a huge spoiler for gaslighter, so you'll have to read that book to find out. look at me marketing my own books. i truly am a girlboss. time to gatekeep something. catekeep, if you will.

we're DONEEEEEE WE'RE DONE IT'S OVER. can you BELIEVE i actually thought i'd finish this in time for ONC? we all laughed. this is just a little bit over 50k on google docs considering i went back and added a few words to chapters 12 and 13 because i thought they needed a bit more padding (and yes i'll admit i wanted to pad my word count lol sue me). we'll see about next year's wattys. we'll see

i thought about writing an extra chapter to explain why i chose to do things the way that i did, why i wrote things a certain way, but it gets tiring having to explain myself and what i know was the best outcome for the book over and over again, especially when no one asked. realistically, this is me overestimating the importance of this book. with that being said, if you have any questions, please feel free to drop them here and i'll do my best to answer. but we're done!! woo!!

thank you thank you thank you ever so much for joining me (and harley) on this journey. if you care, i no longer hate new york. it's slowly growing on me again, and it was someone who broke my heart. it wasn't the city. yes i got his letter. yes i'm doing better (not really). it's a process. it's a whole thing. but we're dealing with it!

this book wouldn't exist without all of you, and i can't thank you enough for choosing to be here with me from start to finish. it's always an honor.

x cate