Once at her desk, she typed out a suggested road map for Rachel’s snag. She’d borrowed slightly from the twelve-step recovery programme and tailored it to create worksheets for Rachel.
1 August – Soul Searching: Rachel to review her online activities. For each hurtful comment, Rachel to examine and detail the fear or upset that motivated her to make that statement. E.g. ‘What was happening in your own life, Rachel? Is this comment really about Sigrid or is it about you?’
Poor Rachel. Lindy wasn’t a big believer in God or the universe, but she had to admit sometimes things in life had a habit of lining up right when you needed them to. She hadn’t been overjoyed to work with Rachel but, ironically, seeing this side of the woman her husband had betrayed her with had helped her come to terms with the whole thing. Rachel was a sad person, and seeing this had made her realise it was not worth throwing away her marriage or business over one tiny, stupid thing.
On the laptop, she continued making her way down the comments sections on Sigrid’s account, grabbing comments here and there to paste into the worksheet document. Next she made a final sweep of all the troll accounts Rachel had given her, double-checking that each one was now disabled. Then something odd caught her eye under a Sigrid Kitchen Transformation video. It was one of the handles Rachel had given her, but the words were reversed. @NeverGoingAway was Rachel’s handle that Lindy had disabled, but here in the comments section was @ GoingAwayNever. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Lindy input the handle into YouTube’s login page and entered Rachel’s ridiculous password. The login screen gave way to the account’s dashboard. Same password again.The woman’s an idiot.
Immediately, Lindy could see this account was different from the others. The rest of the accounts had nothing on them, but there was a video posted here from 20 May, the day of Fielding’s birthday party. The video was labelled ‘test’ and it had exactly two views. The thumbnail was black, and when Lindy played it, it was just a couple of minutes of blank screen. Then she spotted something deeply unnerving. There was one comment. ‘Perfect,’ it said.
The comment was from the Maxxed Out account.
Lindy’s heart pounded as she frantically searched through the @GoingAwayNever account. No other videos were visible on the channel until she hit the ‘manage videos’ button and nine unlisted videos appeared. Unlisted videos were only accessible to someone who was given a direct link. The most recent one was posted on 24 July, barely a week ago. All the videos had the same black thumbnails.
You do not want to see these …
But maybe they were just more trolling nonsense?
She withheld this handle for a reason, Lindy!
Her thoughts raged, but she knew she was clicking on the videos. It was a big-red-button situation. Had to be pressed.
She hadn’t gotten past the first few seconds of the very first one before she slapped the computer shut and the wave of nausea hit. Before she knew what was happening, she was on her hands and knees, vomit spraying across the carpet in front of her.
‘Fucking hell, Lindy! Are you doing a new accent colour in here?’ Finn was standing at the door, gaping.
Lindsay had never vomited from shock before and had always thought it was only something that happened in movies. ‘Oh, Jesus.’ Her eyes were streaming.
‘Christ!’ Fionnuala hurried in and closed the door. ‘Did you eat something? Are you pregnant? Oh my God, this is disgusting.’
‘Thank you.’ Lindy spat the words out with difficulty. The sour taste clogged her mouth. She remained hunched on the floor, the sight of her own sick nothing compared with the images crashing over her again and again. Adam between Rachel’s thighs, his grin, her hands on him. Her moans. His hard-on. The camera had captured it all. Well, not everything. Adam was clearly visible but Rachel was not. Still, it was undeniably her. Lindy felt the shock settle on her, pressing her to the floor and paralysing her thoughts. Then the shaking began. Her teeth chattered and she wondered was she actually unwell. Did she need help?
‘What is going on?’ Finn was freaking and Lindy tried to grasp at some words to explain but her brain wasn’t cooperating. Nothing made any sense.
They were sexting or cybering. Not this.
‘I’m calling emergency, Linds.’ Her sister was holding her shuddering shoulders, crouched down beside her. ‘Don’t worry. It’s gonna be—’
‘Don’t. Please. I just need a minute. I’m OK.’
‘Ah, now you speak. After I knelt in your vom you’re OK!’ Finn U-turned on her sympathy immediately.
‘I’m not OK. I just don’t need an ambulance.’
Clearly sensing the undertow of despair in her words, Finn pulled her close again. ‘What is it, Linds? Is it Max? Did you see Max in the comments—?’
‘I saw something on that woman’s YouTube.’ Lindy indicated the laptop on the desk above. ‘Just open it, Finn.’ Let her watch it. Saying the words was just too unbearable.
Lindy realised that before this moment she’d managed to downplay her hurt because she’d demoted the infidelity to ‘just a virtual affair’. There was nothing remote about this video. This was full contact, skin on skin. The thing that was so staggering to Lindy was how physical this hurt was.I thought I didn’t care. She hugged her body to try to quell the shaking.I remember that grin, she thought as she buried her face in her arms, heaving dry, futile sobs.He grinned at me like that, he held me like that, he loved me like that.
‘Lindy. I have no idea what to say.’
‘Me neither.’ Lindy pulled herself up to standing.
‘I thought it was a —’
‘I know.’ Lindy regarded the floor. A curdled mess on the otherwise perfect white carpet. She found her way to her chair, torpid and hollow from the trauma of the moment. ‘This is very … I’m … I dunno. I’m finding it hard to catch up with this. Everything has been so much better, Finn.’ Tears at last breached the strange numbness. ‘We’ve been so good since—’
‘These are dated all through the summer,’ Finn said quietly.
