POSTLUDE — FINAL NOTE

THIS GOES WITHOUT SAYING, BUT PLEASE READ THE REST OF THE BOOK BEFORE READING THIS NOTE. IT WILL SPOIL THE ENTIRE BOOK. STOP SKIPPING CHAPTERS. THANKS

(please make sure to read this chapter connected to wi-fi/phone data, as it contains images to respect the original formatting style. thank you!)

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— Margaret Atwood, Speeches for Dr. Frankenstein

          This book started off as something entirely different.

          When I first got the original idea for this book, it was harmless in nature and had nothing to do with me other than being inspired by something I was doing at the time. I think book 3 of Open Heart from Playchoices had just come out (laugh all you want, but if you know, YOU KNOW) and Ethan Ramsey was my main character's love interest. He's technically your boss, and it's technically not allowed and is a clear conflict of interest, etc, but things work out. No biggie. I've also been meaning to write a medical drama for YEARS at this point and never do it because I'm even worse when it comes to medicine than I am when it comes to sports.

          So, in the OG version of Gaslighter, the characters were older, more mature, and there were still power dynamics at play, but the whole nature of their relationship was very different from Penn and Chase's. There was always mutual respect and admiration, explicit boundaries and healthy communication, even if the relationship was, in theory, forbidden thanks to the rules placed by their job positions. Do keep in mind they were older than the current version of them and, though the age difference was highlighted in the present iteration of this book, the one in the original era was much smaller. Did that make sense? Okay, cool. The tl;dr version: they were older, they respected each other, the relationship was actually a good thing, and this book is never seeing the light of day.

          With the unfortunate growth of toxic relationships being portrayed as desirable and good in various types of media, I also felt my own discomfort growing. I've never shied away of complaining about the romanticization of relationships like Aria and Ezra's from Pretty Little Liars (that show had an unhealthy fixation with making grown adults creep on younger girls, but that's a conversation for another day) and, though that's something I've never been involved in (for the millionth time — I have never been in a relationship with my college professors), I know what it's like to be gaslighted and manipulated by someone you trust and what it's like to realize that everything you've ever believed to be true was actually a lie and vice-versa.

          This book is a combination of my ongoing frustration with the glamorization of emotionally abusive relationships, my eternal love for Kate Elizabeth's Russell My Dark Vanessa, and a cathartic process of recovery from two separate romantic relationships (so, no, it wasn't just one guy). 

          One of them with someone a few years older than me, who was in a completely different stage of life than I was at the time (I had just started college; he was in his late twenties), and the other with someone my own age who made me feel incredibly inadequate and unheard and most of what you saw Penn go through. This is as much detail as I'm comfortable giving out, so please don't ask. All you need to know is that both of these relationships have hurt me deeply throughout the years and I still carry the effects of them with me to this day (and we're not even getting into the post-New York trip relationships because those are a whole other can of worms).

          I'll say it again: I am not Penn and her experience doesn't perfectly match any of mine. It was never my intention to pour too much of myself into her, and I knew I was running the risk of having my personal life analyzed at a deeper level than I'm comfortable with by choosing to admit this book is based on something I've gone through. You don't have to worry about me—I'm fine, I'm surviving, I'm managing—but please always remember to a) be kind, b) separate real life from fiction (she's not me, she's not you), c) acknowledge that no two experiences are identical.

          With that being said, this has been incredibly cathartic to write, even though some of the effects of these relationships have yet to fade, and I've had to rebuild my life around what happened instead of fully forgetting about it. It's not ideal and they weren't necessarily learning experiences (like I always say, sometimes suffering is just suffering and it just sucks. It doesn't have to build character), not to mention that the two guys that came after have also caused their fair share of damage (I'll risk saying it was even worse this time around), but we're not getting into those. 

          It was a funny inside joke around here to say my therapist didn't like this book because she really didn't, as she was somewhat scared that having to put myself in a mindset that allowed me to write this book with enough empathy so it wouldn't be hurtful for readers but also with a safe distance for the sake of my mental health would set me back. 

          It ended up not being an issue, fortunately, and there were other things that happened to me since I started this book that were the things that set me back and undid over ten years of therapy, not to mention she's no longer my therapist and I'm on my own now, but rest assured she was just looking out for me. Get yourself a good therapist. It pays off.

— Taylor Swift, Say Don't Go

          This book will forever be my favorite. Whether or not it's my magnum opus is up for debate, even though I feel it's quite sad to convince yourself you've peaked and won't ever write something as good again, but I'm extremely proud of the end product. Though it needs editing (like, really bad), I'm content with how it turned out writing-wise and plot-wise (as much plot as a character-focused book can have, that is), and it allowed me to explore a side of my writing I wasn't too familiar with before. I'm not particularly comfortable with dipping my toes into purple prose and more descriptive writing because I'm ESL and always feel like I'm lacking in vocabulary to ever make it work, so I didn't want it to sound like I was just vomiting out a thesaurus without making any sense.

         I made the conscious choice to make this one of those books that looks like it's saying a lot when in reality it's just the same sentence repeated over and over again, written in different ways. I'm well aware this is a flaw and it could get quite tiring to read at times, but it was also a reflection of Penn's state of mind and her own anxieties. She is repetitive in her head. She ruminates. It's what anxiety does to you, and it's also what repeatedly being made to question your own reality, your own feelings, and what is being done to you does to your psyche. 

          If you're made to feel like you can't trust yourself and your recollection of events, what are you supposed to do? Wouldn't you also go over what happened, over and over, to try and make some sense of what's going on? When you're this anxious and scared, wouldn't it make sense in your head to reevaluate everything you've said and done and thought to try and justify what's happening?

          You'll never catch me justifying what Chase did in this book or what people like him do, be either in media or in real life, but you'll surely find me justifying Penn's thought process and the narrative choices I've made while writing this book. I understand she was frustrating to read, much like she was frustrating to write, and I'm not saying she was entirely innocent in some of the things she did. Yes, she was influenced by Chase and yes, she was hardly thinking about other people that weren't him throughout the better part of this book; I won't say she needs to be blamed for every single thing that went wrong here (and if you try to go down the victim blaming route, let me stop you right there by saying you WILL be blocked), but there were decisions she made. Be it for Chase or not, she was still her own person, and some accountability will always be needed, but I think we all agree she did lose herself at some point there. How much of it was out of free will and how much of it was because of Chase and their relationship is up for debate and it's up to you to interpret.

          An interesting thing I saw on TikTok (don't judge me) was something along the lines of calling abusive ex-boyfriends narcissists once the relationship ends and you realize how badly you'd been emotionally manipulated but then there's something to be said about whether they were narcissists or just misogynistic. Narcissists will think of themselves as better than everyone else and are incredibly self-serving, whereas misogynistic men will only act that way towards women. Can those two aspects coexist in the same person? Absolutely. 

          With Chase here, I think he leaned a bit more on the narcissistic side; even though there was absolutely no respect shown towards Penn, I didn't write him to be disrespectful of her as a woman. She was simply seen as being far beneath him because he thought so, because she was younger and vulnerable and was a means of him fulfilling his goals, never the finish line. This was an emotionally immature man who had to feed his ego somehow, and it's no surprise he went after someone so desperate to be wanted that she'd gladly keep giving piece after piece of herself, even to unsustainable levels. Blame the guy!

         An important thing to note is that the humanization of Chase's character wasn't to make you empathetic towards him or be like "he's just a sad boi uwu". Humanizing him is important for the sake of nuance and because I don't personally believe people are either fully evil or fully good, and there has to be room for gray areas in all of us. I'm one of those people who believe humanity is inherently good, but it's our choices that repeatedly decide the path we'll take and how far we move away from what is considered morally good by society. 

          I didn't want Chase to sound like a cartoon villain or to make it look like it was easy for Penn to simply jump ship the second things started going awry. It evolved slowly, the good old "frog in hot water" metaphor, and that's how abusive relationships and cycles feed themselves. It's never always terrible and it can even start off as the best thing that has ever happened to you even though someone is actively preying and benefitting off of your insecurities and vulnerabilities, not to mention the lovebombing.

          Making both Chase and Penn flawed characters with splashes of good in them (objectively bigger and far more numerous in Penn's case) was important to make them sound realistic. You're not meant to feel bad about Chase for doing the things he did to Penn because of his own insecurities, but he's a person, and there are things about him that inevitably humanize him. He's a terrible person, though, and, once again, you won't ever catch me defending him.

          A fun thing about the covers for this book: they're also important. One of them was this one:

          and Steph mentioned liking how it looked like she was looking up at him. And I was like "HEYYYYY YOU GET IT ILY" because that's always been the point! When I first posted this book, half of the model's face was obscured, then she was looking up, and, as the book went on, the has started to look lower, then down, then at the reader. It's a metaphor, see, but I love Steph, especially for being the one to get it. Just wife things!!

— ryebreadgf (on Tumblr), 300122

          A lot of this book has been left up for interpretation—how much Sarah knew and how, whether she'd been through something similar or not, what happens to Savannah and Ingrid, whether the girls all stay friends after college or not, whether Penn ever relapses or not, whether things between her and Fraser ever turn romantic, etc. I'm not exposing my thoughts on any of these things, as I'd much rather have you guys think for yourselves and come up with your own theories if you so wish (and you don't have to share them). Everything I wanted to say and felt like it needed to be included and explicit has been left that way. If it has to be set in stone, it's here. This is the way I intended for the book to end, regardless of how we got here. You don't have to agree with me, obviously, but I'm once again asking you to both be kind and respectful.

          I'm lucky that the readers that have stayed and commented have always been respectful, especially once I started being more explicit in what I felt comfortable to read in my comments section and what I wasn't comfortable with. The book has ended and it feels a bit pointless to be saying this now, but it was always a bit discouraging to read stuff like "Penn needs to wake up!!!" and "sigh" and all that, as it felt both disrespectful and reductive, along with condescending. I fully understand the frustration that comes with reading a book like this, but the one thing I've asked since the beginning was empathy. 

          You wouldn't be sighing at someone going through this in real life, so it felt extremely hurtful to read those things here; yes, this was Penn's story and she's fictional, but maybe keep those things to yourself next time. You never know what other readers are going through, even if you don't want to think about my feelings as the author. Empathy goes a long way, people.

          Even then, I'm still immensely thankful for all of you. Whether you've been here from the start, whether you're a recent reader, I appreciate you a whole lot, especially if you've left a comment and/or a vote. Nowadays, it's even harder than before to build a readership and retain engagement, and, though the numbers have obviously decreased since I first started writing this book, I'm thankful for all of you. You made all of this possible.

          This book means the absolute world to me, which makes it extremely easy to use it as a way to hurt me (do I need to say anything else about the plagiarism + people using engagement as a transactional tool, especially with this book?), but it also made the love that much stronger. I wouldn't have been able to complete this book without your support, and I'll never stop feeling grateful for our little corner of Wattpad.

          To the love of my life smidorii, forever & always. To the queen of my heart champagnekatie_. To hayilaj_ and auniwrites. To all of you. I cannot begin to thank you enough.

All my love,

Cate

— Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals

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