Neighborly(83)

I got so furious. It was like I really could have gone on a murderous rampage. I wanted to track her down and kill her with my bare hands.

What stopped me was believing in karma, that she’d get hers, that she’d live a terrible and miserable and lonely life. I told myself that I’d live out that old saying about how the best revenge is living well. I found a husband and I had my baby and I was accepted into a community, which felt so good after the ostracism my family suffered. But then Katrina showed up in the AV with this husband everyone liked and the most beautiful baby. All the fury came back. I would do whatever it took to get her out of my neighborhood. An eye for an eye. A family for a family.

I don’t care what some therapist thought. Katrina is the villain, and that’s not a narrative. That’s the truth.

I log in to my e-mail, and there’s the usual digest from GoodNeighbors. Twelve new messages from my neighbors! I scan, my eyes widening as I read the third post:

I got your e-mail, and I’ve had enough of your notes. And I know you’re behind the rest of it, too. You know exactly what I’m talking about. I was afraid, but I’m not anymore. I don’t even care who else reads this. I can’t worry about what anyone thinks of me. Not now. It’s gone too far. I just care that you’re reading. You’re somewhere on this site, and you’re on my block, and I’m going to find you. I’ll do whatever it takes to stop you. ANYTHING.

So instead of Kat leaving the AV, she’s putting us all on notice. She’s so unhinged that she’s going vigilante, and she wants us to know it.

I can’t tell if she’s bluffing.

What I do know is, I never wrote any e-mail, and he wouldn’t have, either. Which means that either Kat’s truly batshit and is conjuring phantom e-mails, or this has officially gotten out of control.





CHAPTER 33

KAT

Doug and Sadie are both asleep, and I wish I could join them. But I can’t stop thinking about who might be behind the notes and now the e-mail, who roofied me, who poisoned my child. All that, and I’m still in this house. Because it occurred to me that running might not end it. If someone hates me that much, they could follow me anywhere. So I’ll stay, embedded in this neighborhood, where I can find the clues and the proof. Then they’ll pay for what they’ve done. They’ll be locked up like Layton, and I’ll be truly free. Sadie and I will be safe.

Though if I’m honest with myself, having Layton behind bars hasn’t released me from my own prison of shame. Dr. Morrison talked about how brave it was of me to testify against Layton, how I protected all the other little girls he might have gone on to victimize. But when I testified, I was only seventeen, and I wasn’t thinking of the little girls in the future; I was thinking of the little girls in Layton’s past.

Learning that I wasn’t actually special, that there had been others, devastated me. Ellen came to my house to tell me that her father had been falsely accused, and my first thought was, It’s all true. And I wasn’t the only one. I was such a fool.

Layton and I had been together from when I was ten until when I was thirteen—until I started to look more like a woman and less like a girl. But what he told me at the time was that he needed to end our relationship because it was wrong. As much as he loved me, I was his daughter’s best friend, and even though his marriage was nothing but an empty facade, he needed to rededicate himself to it for his children. He made it sound like a terrible sacrifice, like losing me was practically killing him.

But it was bullshit. He was moving on to other prepubescents. He’d lied to me.

I’d been so hurt and so angry, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I thought that Ellen deserved to know who her father really was, and before I went to the district attorney, I told her. She didn’t believe me, but I was sure she’d come around.

Then there were all these other victims coming forward, and I found out just how not special I was. We were all just so horribly similar, all duped in the same exact ways. One by one, they dropped out—their parents changed their minds or they had emotional breakdowns—until it was just the original accuser and me.

Ellen stood by her father. She even manipulated for him, begging me not to testify. She didn’t stop me, but she made me feel guilty. It was terrible, being on the stand, having to look at Layton, the only man I’d ever loved (I didn’t have a father, after all), and looking out at Layton’s wife, who’d treated me so kindly and who resembled Ellen. I was tearing apart their family and for what? For vengeance. I was punishing him for the fact that I wasn’t special at all. I was just stupid.

But I’d loved him. I didn’t love all the sexual things, not on their own, but I loved making him happy. He tried to end our relationship a bunch of times, and I seduced him back. I was ten and eleven and twelve and thirteen, feeling powerful. Feeling irresistible. Then I hit puberty, and he could resist me, all right. Intellectually, I know that makes him a pedophile. But sometimes I still don’t know what it makes me.

Here I am, with a husband who’s supposed to love me, who’s supposed to have chosen me above all others, forsaken all others, and I’m still so stupid. I don’t know where he was when he was supposed to be at work, not for sure, but I have a pretty good idea.

What I do know is that I was terrified when I brought Sadie home by myself, letting myself back into Crayola, i.e. the scene of the crime. I know that I disinfected every surface twice over. I know that I was afraid to put Sadie down anywhere, that I just kept her clutched to me. I know that this is not what home should feel like.