Tomorrow, I’ll open the messages. I’ll read the comments. I’ll figure out what life looks like from here.
But I can’t face it today.
I’m going to hold this cold coffee and let my heart beat too fast, and tears streak mascara down my cheeks, and I’m going to wait out the pain.
There’s a knock at the door, which drags my attention from the window. I don’t move at first, assuming it’s a neighbor or a delivery I forgot I ordered, but then it comes again, and it’s firmer this time. Intentional and demanding. A knock that means business.
I set the cold coffee on the sill, slide off the chair, and pad barefoot to the door, my chest already tight.
When I open it, Allie pushes inside before I can speak.
She’s dressed in joggers and an oversized sweatshirt, hair up in a claw clip, face flushed from the wind or the stairs. She doesn’t bother with hello.
“Allie?”
“Grace,” she says, voice clipped and urgent. “Have you seen it?”
“Seen what?”
She drops her purse on the counter and fishes out her phone. “God. You haven’t looked at anything, have you? Twitter? TikTok? Jesus, Grace…”
I shake my head, remembering when I uttered those same words to Allie when everything in her life hit rock bottom. “I haven’t. I didn’t want to…”
She closes her eyes, pressing her fingers to her temples like she’s trying to prevent her skull from exploding. “You need to sit down.”
The words land hard, so I don’t argue. I drift back to the chair by the window. The phone I’ve been ignoring still sits face down beside me. “Why?” I whisper.
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she perches on the windowsill, reaches over, picks up my phone, hands it to me to unlock, and opens a browser window. Her fingers type a few characters, and then she turns the screen toward me.
#gracecanride
I stare at it.
At first, it doesn’t register. It’s a stupid hashtag with my name in it.
Then the page loads to reveal video after video.
Some are blurry. Some sharp. Faces I almost remember from bar bathrooms, Tinder matches, and half-forgotten flings. Some I don’t remember at all. All men, smirking and casual. So fucking confident in their cruelty.
“I hooked up with Grace back in… what was it, February? Yeah. She can ride, all right. City girl who left me limping for a week. I’d join a cowboy cult if it meant a second round. No strings attached.”
“Ten outta ten at showing a dick a good time. I’d visit a poly ranch if she’s part of the hospitality package. Not a keeper, but worth a ride. She knows what to do with her hips.”
Another voice.“Isn’t that the journalist who wrote that poly-cowboy thing? Figures. Grace can ride, and apparently, she’s got room for eleven.”
Laughter in the background. Some of the videos are memes. Others are screenshots of my face lifted from the article, pasted over slow-motion horse-riding clips or porn stills. A few are genuinely vile. All of them reduce me to sex and spectacle and nothing else.
I stare, breath gone, eyes stinging.
My name is a hashtag. A joke. A punchline.
And I feel myself detaching, as if I’m watching from outside my own skin.
Allie gently takes the phone and flips it face down again, but the damage is done. I feel untethered, like I’ve floated outside of myself, and there’s no getting back in.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. She sinks into the chair across from me and rests her hand on my knee. Her eyes shine, but she doesn’t cry. “I hate this. I hate it so much. You know I’ve been there, Grace. I know how it feels when the world decides your body is public property. I don’t know what it is about women enjoying sex that makes men feel so threatened, but it’s real. And it’s fucking infuriating.”
I can’t look at her. My throat’s raw with shame. The fallout after her pictures were exposed almost shattered her fledgling relationship. I’m just glad I was there to help when she needed it.
