I don’t go straight home. Instead I pedal slowly around town in a strange sort of haze, completely immune to what’s going on around me. I move on autopilot, only aware of my surroundings in some kind of subconscious way.
I must cycle carefully because I don’t get hit by a truck or anything [which I suppose would’ve been nice in a poetic way, being killed in the same manner as my parents, just as I’m a hundred percent sure I’ve disappointed them as much as I possibly can in the short time I’ve spent on this planet], but there’s no active thought process behind the cars I swerve to miss, or the pedestrians in the cycle lane I ding my bell at.
“Do you really think our community has been blind to your antics, Izzy??”
The noise of the street – engines and brake pads, laughter and gusts of wind and the beep of traffic lights – is just a vaguely muffled din. All I hear is Mrs Dutta’s voice echoing vividly through my head.
“It’s your life to ruin. Just don’t involve my daughter.”
My eyes sting from exhaust fumes and tears.
“This? This is inexcusable.”
Is it really? Am I really beyond redemption? Surely people do worse things than I do every damn day, and yet they don’t feel like this – like a complete and utter scumbag who doesn’t deserve the air she breathes. Do they? Do they just do a really good job of hiding it?
A horn blares behind me, but I barely register it.
Once when I was having a low self-esteem moment – just a standard teenage drama about my lopsided boobs, even before they were on display to the world – Ajita said to me, “Izzy, it is not okay that people who wave the Confederate flag feel good about themselves and you do not.” Is that still true? Or have I crossed into a realm so deplorable that even they would feel ashamed?
I think I’ve stopped cycling, but I can’t be sure.
If this was happening to someone else, I’d insist they maintain their pride and self-respect. So you sent a nude, and had sex with a couple guys, and kissed your best friend even though you did not wish to let him enter you. So what? You behaved like a standard teenager. It’s not your fault that the whole of America is inexplicably interested in your exploits just because one of your conquests was a senator’s son. It’s not your fault you were not in love with your best friend, and he couldn’t handle it. It’s not your fault this is happening to you.
Even the things that are your fault. The Ajita thing. You messed up. Badly. You didn’t think before you spoke. You’re not the first person to do that, nor will you be the last. In fact, someone else is doing it right now, right this very second. Forgive yourself.
But somehow those rules don’t seem to apply to my situation. Me? I’m a scumbag. A complete and utter scumbag. All self-worth I once possessed has evaporated, and right this second, right here in the middle of a busy road in the middle of town, all I want – all I deserve – is for a sinkhole to open up beneath me and swallow me whole.
Of course, the universe doesn’t work like that. Nobody who wants to disappear actually does. It’s always the people like my parents, the people who have everything to live for, who get hit by drunk drivers and are eradicated forever.
The thought of my parents jolts me painfully back to the present. I’m sitting stationary at a green traffic light, cars behind me tooting angrily, some jerkwad leaning out of the window and yelling about how much of a dick I am. Yeah, dude. I know. Believe me, I know.
I start pedaling again, unsure where I’m even going. The mall’s nearby. Maybe I could go for a cinnabon. The idea seems so absurd, so ridiculously normal, that I almost laugh. Almost.
Instead I round a corner, and the first thing I see as I turn into the street is a stab in the gut.
Ajita and Danny. Together. Without me.
She throws her head back and laughs at something he said. They carry coffee cups, and I know what’s inside them without having to guess: peppermint hot chocolate for Ajita, Earl Grey tea for Danny. He’s grinning. His hair is clean for once, and there’s color in his cheeks like there wasn’t last time I saw him.
And then I realize: they’re better off without me. Their worlds are better without me in them.
7.48 p.m.
Betty’s out again. Ping-pong tournament. You know when Forrest Gump gets back from Vietnam and is suddenly phenomenal at ping-pong? That was Betty after she lost her daughter and son-in-law. Unspeakable trauma, but on the plus side she became very talented at the most pointless sport in the history of pointless sports. [No offense to ping-pong players. But really. What is the point?]
Feeling as hollow and empty as, well, a ping-pong ball, I open up my laptop and boot up Final Draft to start editing my screenplay. I’ve read the opening pages so many times that I’ve lost all concept of whether or not they even make sense, but the judges emailed me a ton of feedback with the shortlist announcement, so at least I have some semblance of direction for the revisions. I’m grateful for the distraction, to be honest. It’s keeping my tiny pea brain occupied when the rest of my world is falling apart.
I launch my email browser to retrieve the feedback, and the “unread messages (308)” aggressively reminds me of just how many people know about my scumbag tendencies. Sorting through them is too daunting, so I just search for the producer’s name. Frown. It still says “unread (1)”. I wasn’t expecting to hear from them for another week.
Hi Izzy,
Hope you’re well. I’m just dropping you a brief email with a quick competition update.
After much consideration and discussion, the judges have made the difficult decision to withdraw your entry from the Script Factor shortlist. The recent press coverage following some indiscretions in your personal life will likely attract some unfavorable attention to the competition, which is of great concern to us. We’ve worked very hard over the years to build a certain kind of reputation in the industry, which is why we’re so highly thought of today (and thus why reaching the later stages of the competition is still something to be very proud of?!). As a result, any threat to that reputation is taken very seriously indeed.
Particularly due to the sexual nature of your screenplay, we’ve been forced to re-evaluate your position, and regretfully we’ve taken the decision to remove you from the running.
I understand this is disappointing, but we hope you continue to persevere in the screenwriting world. You have a lot of potential and the judges saw something in your work that we don’t often come across.
We’d like to invite you to re-enter the competition in a couple of years’ time – once the controversy surrounding your personal life has settled down (which we’re sure it will), we’ll be more than happy to welcome you back to Script Factor.
All the very best,
Tom
9.02 p.m.
Every time I feel like I can finally catch my breath, like I might actually survive this, something even worse steals the air from my lungs.
Oh my God. Losing everything and knowing it’s all my fault is excruciating.
9.06 p.m.
When this all first kicked off I had the fleeting thought that the competition producers might find out about the scandal. But I dismissed it as standard-issue Izzy melodrama. They wouldn’t possibly see the nudes, and if they did, it’d be them that should be embarrassed. I distinctly remember thinking that. That they should be mortified to be caught looking at a teen girl’s nudes.
And yet now the embarrassment and downright shame is enough to drown me.