The Marriage Lie(100)
“I don’t give a shit what people think. This isn’t about getting noticed. This is about Chelsea Vogel taking advantage of me. She was my boss, and she used her position of authority to make me think she loved me.”
“So this story is about revenge.”
“No.” Maria’s answer was immediate and emphatic. “This story is about justice. What she did to me may not be a crime, officially, but it was still wrong. She should still be punished.”
“Take it to the HR department. They’ll make sure Chelsea Vogel is fired, and they’ll be inclined to keep things quiet.”
“Chelsea is the HR department, don’t you get it? American Society for Truth is her project. And I don’t want to be quiet. I’m done being quiet. I’m the victim here, and I want Chelsea to pay.”
I told myself it was the righteousness in her tone, the resolve creasing her brow and fisting her hands that convinced me, and not the idea of my name attached to a story that I knew, I knew would go viral.
“I’ll do what I can to protect your identity, but you need to be aware that there’s a very real probability it’ll get out, and when it does, every single second of your life will be altered. Not just now, but tomorrow and the next day and the next. This scandal—and make no mistake about it, this is a scandal for you just as much as it is for her—will follow you for the rest of your life. You’ll never be anonymous ever again.”
She swallowed, thought for a long moment. “I think I still want you to write the story.”
“You think? Or you know?” I leaned forward and watched her closely. Not just her answer but also her body language would determine my course of action.
“I know.” She straightened her back, squared her shoulders and looked me straight in the eye. “I want you to write the story.”
So that’s what I did. I wrote the story.
I did everything right, too. I checked facts and questioned witnesses, volunteers and employees at neighboring businesses and the building janitor. I made sure the evidence had not been digitally altered, compared the dates and times on the photographs to both women’s work and home schedules. I held back Maria’s name, blurred out faces, released only the least damning of the pictures, the ones where there was no way, no possible way Maria would be recognized. I did every goddamn thing right, but within twenty-four hours of my story breaking, Maria’s identity, along with every single one of the photographs and videos in clear, full-color focus, exploded across the internet anyway. Just as, if I’m being completely honest with myself, I knew they would.
Two weeks later, on a beautiful January morning, Chelsea Vogel hung herself in the shower. I wasn’t there when it happened, of course, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t responsible for her death. After all, those were my words that made her drive those five miles in her minivan to the Home Depot for a length of braided rope, then haul it home and knot it around her neck. I knew when I put them out there that both women’s lives would be changed. I just never dreamed one of them would also end.
Secrets are a sneaky little seed. You can hide them, you can bury them, you can disguise them and cover them up. But then, just when you think your secret has rotted away and decayed into nothing, it stirs back to life. It sprouts roots and stems, crawls its way through the mud and muck, growing and climbing and bursting through the surface, blooming for everyone to see. That’s the lesson here. The truth always comes out eventually.
But I can no longer be the one to write about it.