INVESTIGATOR: Ms. Hart, I’m Lieutenant Charles Foster. This is Detective Terence Newman. For the record, today is December 31 at 9:17 p.m. This interview is being recorded.
HART: I need my therapist. Dr. Laura Regan. Is she here yet? She was supposed to meet me here at the police station.
INVESTIGATOR: Terry, can you look into that? [pause] OK, Ms. Hart. Can I call you Tessa?
HART: I really need my therapist. This is the first day I left my house in, like, forever.
INVESTIGATOR: I understand. We’re working on locating Dr. Regan. In the meantime, Tessa, can you please state your full name, birth date, and occupation for the record?
HART: Tessa Lynn Hart. April 3, 1998. I’m eighteen.
INVESTIGATOR: Occupation?
HART: Um, I don’t know. Not applicable? I was supposed to start college this past fall, but I-I couldn’t. I had to defer.
INVESTIGATOR: Can we say unemployed?
HART: Right. Unemployed.
INVESTIGATOR: Good. Now, can you please identify what this is right here?
HART: That’s my cell phone. Oh my God, I thought I lost it! Where did you get that?
INVESTIGATOR: How did you lose it, Tessa? Was it taken from you?
HART: Maybe. I don’t…I don’t want to talk about that. I should probably go to the hospital or something—
INVESTIGATOR: Tessa, please stay in your seat. We’re looking for your therapist right now.
HART: Can I have my phone? Maybe I can text her.
INVESTIGATOR: I need you to walk me through a few things first. I’m looking here at your Twitter account. Could you please tell me when you first set up this account?
HART: Back in high school. Junior year. But then I changed the username this summer, around the end of June.
INVESTIGATOR: June 2016?
HART: Right. Because…because of what happened. I deleted a lot of my old tweets then too.
INVESTIGATOR: We’d like to take a look at your direct messages with the account in question, if you don’t mind. Do I have your permission to read through this?
HART: Go ahead. It doesn’t matter.
INVESTIGATOR: The first message is dated August 12, 2016. Does that sound about right?
HART: I guess so. August. I remember Scott came to see me that morning. He was just about to head off for freshman orientation. So yeah. August.
INVESTIGATOR: Scott?
HART: My ex-boyfriend.
INVESTIGATOR: I see. Let’s finish discussing your Twitter activity, and then we’ll come back to Scott. Do you recall if you had any other correspondence with this individual before the first direct message on August 12?
HART: Just a few tweets back and forth. He followed me first. I followed him back. I was trying to be social. For therapy. I have agoraphobia. I was supposed to work on interacting with different people. But I didn’t realize who…who it was. I should have blocked him. I should have deactivated the account. I should have deactivated back when I left New Orleans. I’m so stupid [unintelligible].
INVESTIGATOR: Tessa?
HART: Eric. Eric Thorn—
INVESTIGATOR: Are you OK, Tessa?
HART: You don’t understand. I need my therapist. I need to go home.
7
BATTLE
Eric gripped the phone in both hands as he exited the hotel bathroom. This Tessa person had better follow him fast. He only had a few minutes before Maury expected him downstairs, and then he’d have to endure his manager’s company for the hour-long ride to the poultry farm. Eric didn’t know if he could face it. Not without venting his overwhelming sense of frustration—fourteen million followers worth of pent-up rage.
He silently willed the Twitter notification to appear, and he let out a grunt of satisfaction when he saw it.
Tessa H (@TessaHeartsEric) followed you.
Eric tapped the DM button so hard he nearly cracked the screen.
Taylor: Hey, Tessa. Thanks for the follow.
Tessa H: Hi
Taylor: Hey can I ask you a question?
Tessa H: Um OK
Eric’s mouth twisted dangerously as he entered his next message. He knew exactly how to play it. He’d been around enough fangirls to know how they all talked.
Taylor: Personality quiz! If you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?
Tessa H: I dunno. A gazelle maybe? Why?
Taylor: Cuz you know what kind of animal Eric Thorn would see, if he ever noticed you existed?
Tessa H: Ummm. I dunno. Not a gazelle? Maybe a chicken? :P
Eric didn’t even read her answer. He plowed on, texting like a man possessed, entering new messages as swiftly as he could move his fingers—not even thinking about the words.
Taylor: A leech.
Tessa H: Excuse me?
Taylor: That’s right. A nasty, bloodthirsty leech. With no purpose to your miserable, meaningless existence except to suck.
Taylor: And when he saw you there, sucking, he would shudder with disgust.
Taylor: And he would flick you off with his fingernail.
Taylor: And then you know what he’d do, Tessa? Then he’d forget you ever existed and go about his day.
? ? ?
Tessa’s jaw dropped open at the words that flashed across her screen. She’d been sitting in her beanbag chair, but she stood now and paced back and forth across the narrow bedroom. Her stomach churned. This couldn’t be happening. Her first foray into social interaction with a stranger, and she’d picked some nasty troll. She should have known better. She’d totally misread the signs. Personality quiz…
A leech?
It wasn’t true, of course. As if this Taylor person could see inside Eric Thorn’s head any more than Tessa could. Ridiculous.
Still, the DMs hit her like a gut punch. They knocked the wind right out of her, and Taylor managed to fire off a whole string of messages before Tessa finally gathered herself to reply.
Tessa H: Wow. Thanks for the insight. And this is from…who exactly? Oh that’s right. An egg.
Taylor: Yeah, I’m an egg. You know why I’m an egg? Cuz I actually have a life. In the real world. You might want to try it.
Tessa H: You don’t know anything about me!
Taylor: Why don’t you find a real person to obsess over instead of some pathetic celebrity?
Tessa H: For your information I have a boyfriend.
Taylor: Oh really? And what does your “boyfriend” think about your Twitter account?
Tessa winced. She’d already been feeling guilty about Scott—as if she somehow betrayed her boyfriend every time she tweeted about Eric Thorn. But that was all just paranoid nonsense. Lots of people had fan accounts. Celebrity crushes. It wasn’t like Scott even cared what she did on Twitter.
She’d only traveled a few feet across her room, but her legs felt like she’d just completed a marathon. She sank down heavily onto the edge of her bed.
Dr. Regan had it wrong, Tessa thought, as her breath rushed in and out in shallow gasps. Not every interaction had therapeutic value. This one would probably set back her progress for months.
Taylor: And…silence. Isn’t that interesting?
Tessa H: I’m done with this conversation. Bye.
Taylor: I’m guessing this “boyfriend” probably doesn’t exist.