Zanna had been making a lot of bad choices lately. Shane and I were in danger of becoming her victims, victims of her reckless, selfish decisions. He would lose his love, I would lose my livelihood and lifestyle, all because of Zanna. What gave her the right to make fools out of both of us? So, I decided I would expose her affair. I’d meted out justice before, and I’d do it again. If I lost everything too, I reasoned, at least she would lose Shane.
Espionage, then. I used the same old method I’d used before, with Sophia. Rudimentary hacking. It wasn’t hard. Zanna was so sure she was safe, that she had nothing to hide from me, regardless of how badly she treated me. Well, despite her obvious beliefs, I was not defanged. I knew Zanna’s password. It wasn’t hard to piece together after a few glances over her shoulder. Ch4n3l5. Basic as fuck. Zanna left her Mac on her bed. I covered my hands with my jumper to gently take it and prise it open. You can’t be too careful.
I went for the good stuff straight away. WhatsApp messages. No, no. Archived WhatsApp messages. That’s where the juice would be. Guilty people like to hide things away. And there they were, Zanna’s shames, in order of last opened. Of course, Mason’s name appeared. The last chain of messages to be deleted were from him. His last message, not what I expected.
He’d written: I love you
Resentment, negroni-bitter, caused my lip to curl. What was it with this woman? She made everyone fall in love with her. It was unfair. All so damn unfair. As I scrolled through the messages, their relationship came to life backwards — unfurling passion in reverse. The beginning was sweet, the end so sour. As it turned out, they had slept together in Ibiza.
And she had sent the first message.
Thanks for everything — and making me forget the world for a moment.
Major eye roll. Oh yes, Zanna and her appalling “world”.What was she running from? Only the love of a good man and a devoted friend.
Perhaps she had meant for it to end there. But Mason clearly had not. He responded. And then responded again. Soon he charmed her with flattery, of her face, her body. Flattery never failed when it came to Zanna. She rewarded him with pictures of that body, explicit pictures that shocked even me. She held a phone in her hand for a selfie, leaning over in front of the mirror, exposing her back end and looking over her shoulder. Shaved pudenda on show. My stomach lurched at the images, to which he responded with requisite aubergine emojis. He sent a picture of his own genitals, unappealing and unhygienic above what looked like a public toilet floor. I shuddered.
He had invited himself to London after all, like Zanna had said.
I’m right by your place. Let’s hang out. Don’t let me go back without having seen you, he wrote.
Okay. Don’t tell Paige though. About us. She doesn’t know.
It stuck in my craw. The idea of Zanna keeping something from me so overtly, though she had already lied to me. To see her write it out like that. Betraying me.
So, they’d slept together that night, most likely at the salt flats. I’d always suspected it.
Last night was amazing. I want to see you soon, Mason had sent, shortly after he’d left.
She’d tried to let him down gently. First in the polite way. The pauses between texts lengthening, the length of her responses shortening. Like a lot of men, Mason carried on belligerently. Resorted to sending explicit messages in an attempt to get a response.
I miss you sexy.
I want you.
I want to . . .
He described some heinous sex acts I can’t bear to name. Zanna eventually responded:
My boyfriend and I have decided to try and make it work. I’m sorry, we need to end whatever this was between us.
This enraged him.
You’re back with that asshole? The one who treats you like shit? Shouts at you and pushes you around? What the fuck?
You led me on. I love you. You used me.
How would that psycho boyfriend of yours feel if those pictures you sent me got around? The pictures I have of you ( . . . ) on my phone. How about that?
He described another intimate act in terms too rude to repeat. She responded:
Do you really have pictures of me?
He sent one, as described. I saw his chiselled torso, her head of shining, onyx black hair and his hand on it, swallow tattoo and all.
Oh my God, Mason, what the fuck? Delete those!
He responded.
Why should I?
Zanna changed tack.
Okay, I’ll meet you. I want to see you. Come over tonight. Shane’s at a convention. I’ll work a way around Paige.
I checked the date on the messages. Tonight was tonight. My head swam, woozy. It was a lot to process. Zanna had slept with Mason, and he had taken photos without her knowledge. Now he was blackmailing her. My heart sank. Regardless of the way she had treated me, I pitied her. My fists curled into a ball thinking about it.
Next, I searched for my own name, in Zanna’s messages. Call me conceited, but I couldn’t help it. Who doesn’t want to know what is being said about them? My so-called friend and boss had been discussing me in messages to her mother and to Gianna. Hot, red prickle panic rose from my chest to my neck and around my ears as I read them, followed by fizzing outrage.
She’s so weird, Zanna had written about me to Gianna. She’s obsessed with Shane. I’ll be pleased when we’ve moved out and I don’t have to deal with her anymore. She wants to be me. Maybe she’s in love with me. The fucking freak.
Like a dagger to the heart. But the messages to her mother were worse again.
Zanna: I’m firing Paige as soon as we’ve moved out. She’s getting way too much. Maybe I need someone more professional who’ll get it, and won’t keep asking about credit. Someone with a degree. I’m going to hire properly, you know.
Angela: Okay darling. Your father knows an employment lawyer you can speak to, make sure there’s no legal issue.
I blinked away tears called to my eyes by shock and indignation, rather than sorrow. My hands shook, the taste in my mouth was bitter. The world whooshed around like a washing machine and I had to catch myself on the floor to prevent my fall. An implosion of wrath knocked me reeling, physically, mentally. Blind rage saw Zanna and mine’s past flash before my eyes. As she’d held me and told me to throw away my university degree to support her business. Abandon it all for a job as her lackey. Discard my own future to be the woman behind the words she would claim as her own.
She had promised “they’ll hire you in an instant” as she pried me away from my hard-won university place. Well, none of the job applications I had fired off since Zanna had refused to credit me for my work — and had unceremoniously told me I’d soon be homeless at Shane’s birthday party — had been responded to instantly. They hadn’t been responded to at all. I was not surprised: the job applications asked for experience I didn’t have for any position that paid what I needed to stay in the lifestyle I had become accustomed to, which I had helped to fund with my words. Now that same so-called friend planned to fire me. Zanna would leave me with absolutely nothing. I blinked through livid tears. And then I caught myself.
Perhaps it didn’t have to be this way. Zanna was under stress. She’d been cut off, blackmailed, in a tailspin. Drinking, sleeping around. Thinking of firing me. All bad decisions. I could be, once again, that support she needed, when no one else believed in the blog, the website. And I’d save myself and my job in the process.
Either way, I needed insurance. I went to forward the messages to myself, and then I stopped. I couldn’t leave a digital paper trail for Zanna to discover and give her a legitimate reason to fire me. I took pictures of the conversation on my own phone. Click, scroll, click, scroll, click, scroll. Then I sat on the sofa, where so many movie nights, face masks, popcorn and nail-painting sessions had taken place, now defiled by Mason and Zanna’s indiscretion. What to do next. My flesh tingled.
This is where Zanna found me, when she walked through the door smiling, carrying shopping bags, looking like a million dollars. She couldn’t distract me from the pain behind the smile and panic behind the purchases. No wonder she’d been drinking so much, seeing more of Gianna and staying out late. Stressed, living under duress, losing her father’s money — and acceptance — made her fragile, vulnerable to bad ideas and outside influences.
I smiled, fawned over the new purchases she showed me from her bag, holding them up to me like a child bringing toys to its parent, hoping for approval, and admiration, her major vice, her one addiction. We smiled and laughed, a little bit like old times. I even asked how the flat hunt was going, for the home she intended to take Shane away to.
“Oh fuck, Paige, this one is in the wrong size.” She held up a shirt. “It’s a six but I want an eight. Oh balls. Paige, would you mind going to return it tonight? I want to shoot it tomorrow. Please! I’ll let you keep it after if you do.”
She was trying to get me out of the house to sort things out with Mason. Her eye twitched. It hurt to see her like this. I wanted to reach out and hold her, soothe her. Make her my Zanna again. I really tried.
“Zanna, I’m worried about you.” My voice was cashmere-jumper soft.
She started a little and blinked at me. If her forehead could have creased, it would have.
“Zanna. I know about you and Mason, I’ve seen the pictures.”
She was still as marble, frozen with first incomprehension, then creeping horror. Behind her blusher, her face paled.
“What, how?”
I sighed, wet my lips. How to approach this? A step ahead of me, she said: “You hacked my messages?”
I bowed my head, a half nod. Zanna sputtered. I waited for her anger to give way, and it did. She breathed and sank onto the sofa, hands shaking. She let me sit down beside her and hold her, her body stiff as she processed it all.
“He’s a scumbag,” I said, as Zanna’s tears came thick, her face wet and her voice viscous and nasal.
“I didn’t know he was taking the pictures,” she whispered.
“I know, I know.” I held her and patted her shoulders, shuddering with her small sobs.
“I don’t know what I was thinking. Honestly Paige, this is the biggest mistake of my life. I just, since my dad cut me off and Shane’s so — so aggressive. I just feel like it’s not working out. Nothing’s working out.”
Sparkling pearls of pain fell down her flushing cheeks.
“We can manage this between us, Zanna. Let me help you.” I took her hand, leaning towards her and trying to placate her with a gentle, honeyed tone. Droplets fell from her thick, dark lashes — expensive mink extensions — with each blink. She looked at my hand, holding hers, and then at my face. So reticent, afraid, like a baby deer.
“Let me help you,” I implored her. “We’ll report this guy to the police. We won’t let him intimidate you. You can take some time off. Let me run the blog for a while. We have enough content to last a few weeks at least and I can take it from there, while you sort out whatever is going on here. It will all be okay. I can be like, a partner in the blog, or something—” How to make it sound like I hadn’t been thinking about this for a while? “—and we can manage the fallout of this together. Think about it — you can be a feminist icon, talking about it all — it’s an important story, you can share it with people. Women will respect that, and I’ll be right there helping you.”
Her body swayed as she thought about it. Her head must have been spinning. She leaned towards me, towards the idea, but then she leaned away again. She shook her head.
“No, it’s okay. I can handle it myself. But thanks. Thanks, Paige.”
She pulled away, breathed in deeply through her nose. She pressed her hands to her wet face and smoothed her hair back. She wrung her hands and pressed them into her waist. She nodded, to herself, and spun around to face me again.
“You’re right, I can handle this myself. I’ll go to the police.”
“I’ll help you,” I yelped, jumping to my feet. “I want to help. I can help run the blog while you—”
She put out her hand and I fell silent. “Seriously, thank you, Paige, but I don’t need your help.”
I couldn’t believe it. After everything I offered to do for her, to help her out of this mess she had got herself into, and she still pushed me away. I’d given my life to Zanna, without question, and again she cast me aside.
“Zanna, I really think you need my help. I mean, I know everything that’s happened with Mason, you know. I know a lot of stuff.”
What was I saying? I didn’t even know. I was desperate. Desperate not to lose her, or my job.
Zanna looked at me like how Talia looked at me, with Sophia whispering in her ear. She’s weird. She’s creepy. My stomach sank. I was losing Zanna. No, I’d lost Zanna.
She rankled. “I’m not going to let you gaslight me into giving you the blog, you freak.”
I exploded. “How can you do this?” I said, voice high-pitched with pain. “How can you treat me like this? You want to fire me? After everything I’ve done for you. Getting you the following I deserve for my work. Covering for Shane. You don’t deserve any of this. It’s all me. It’s all off my back. You don’t deserve anything you have.”
Hot tears slipped down my face and my stomach cramped with suppressed bawling. It was so unfair. Zanna’s massive house, her money, her beauty, her boyfriend, all her fancy bags and her friends who loved her. My parents’ tiny house, bullying in the hallways, everything I’d had to work so hard for, the uni place I no longer had, the fact a man had never really loved me, the fact that no one knew who I was and, if Zanna fired me, no one ever would. So unfair. My whole life. Unfair.
“Paige.” Her voice was high-pitched, shocked, almost like a mother admonishing a child. She was treating me like an infant, her junior. Old habits die hard, even when your dignity hangs in the balance. “This really isn’t appropriate.”
There we go. From friend to boss. Another person, pushing me away. It was over. We were over. The dream, dead.
I spun on my heel and left the flat, grabbing my bag. Zanna didn’t deserve anything. I had just one thing I could take away from her. One way to serve justice, however small.
I typed.
I’m sorry, Shane, I have to show you something.