by Gabi Moore
Half asleep, I visited the same review site and quietly hoped she had the decency to remove her little tantrum. But what I saw woke me up fast. The review was still there. And now there was another one. I bolted upright in bed, rubbed my eyes and tried to make sense of what I was seeing:
“The teacher here is obviously just looking to hit on vulnerable women. Since many women take up self-defense because they have a history of abuse or trauma, it seems pretty seedy for people to prey on them like this. Complete lack of professionalism. If you don’t mind being ogled or creeped on, then these classes might be for you, but you have been warned!”
Was I still fucking dreaming? What new nightmare was this? It was another single star review, and both of them together were so damning it felt like I was looking at the beginning of the end for my business. One bad review was one thing, but two?
I was seething.
It was her.
That fucking bitch was unbelievable. I had asked her nicely and this is what she did? It was outrageous. All I was doing was trying to set up an honest business and here this woman was sabotaging everything… Why?
I read the second review over and over again, feeling more sickened each time. I was so mad my hands were shaking as I closed the laptop, unable to change the words on the screen no matter how much I looked at them.
It was unfair. It was complete bullshit. I had spent my life developing myself according to principles of fairness and hard work and respect. I had never taken advantage of a vulnerable person in my life – let alone a woman! Lack of professionalism? Seedy? I was none of those things. This was my worst nightmare. And the more I thought about, the angrier I became when I realized how little I could do to fight back. It wasn’t fair.
In the Navy, a man stands on whatever reputation he can create for himself. He earns his standing by the actions he takes, and the attitude he conveys. There’s no man in my long career there that I didn’t have a disagreement with that couldn’t be resolved fairly and reasonably. But this? This was like playing a rigged game. My character was being insulted and I was powerless. How can you argue against it? That bitch knew what she was doing, and she wrote a review that she knew would hurt me and my business the most.
I realized I was pacing. Grinding my teeth. Well, adjusting to the ‘real world’ was proving to be one hell of a mystery to me, but I wasn’t going to let her humiliate me like this. Was she just going to keep posting reviews like this forever? It was mad. I’d sue her. I’d contact the website. I’d pay people to post good reviews, fuck, I had to do something. I looked at the clock. It was 4:17. There was nothing I could do now.
Or was there?
Before I knew what I was doing I was downstairs and throwing my robe on, and blustering out the front door. She could hide her identity online, but I literally knew where she lived. She was a coward, but I would force her to face me if she wanted to play this game. I flew out into the still, blue-black night and stole away up the path in silence. Before I lost my nerve, I banged loudly on her door, then waited a moment before banging again. I set my jaw and prepared myself. I didn’t give a damn about what time it was, nobody threatened my reputation and my livelihood …no matter how beautiful they were.
I stood there for a while, shivering partly from rage, partly from the chill night air, and banged a third time. Shortly after, I heard the clatter of locks unclinking on the other side of the door, and then it cracked open an inch.
“Are you fucking crazy?” hissed a voice from inside. My eyes adjusted to see her pale face.
“We need to talk. Now,” I said. My mistake had clearly been not taking a harder line with this woman right from the start.
“I’m sorry, but do you have any idea what time—”
“Now,” I said and took a step forward, wedging my foot into the crack of the door. Her eyes flicked down to see this and then flicked back up to look at me. To my astonishment, the door opened wide to allow me to walk inside.
Her apartment was just like mine, only more sparse. There was barely any sign of life at all, like she had just moved in yesterday. I recognized the awkward piles of unpacked boxes, and was reminded of my own. She clicked on a single side lamp, crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me. For a moment, the sight of her in her meager pajamas made me lose my train of thought. There was something about her bare upper thighs in those little cotton shorts that messed with my brain wiring. But I cleared my throat and spoke plainly. Shots had been fired and I would have been an idiot to let this woman get away with anything just because she was clearly very, very attractive.
“Not only did you not take that review down, but you wrote another one,” I said and waited for her to leap to her own defense. But she just stood there, looking smug.
“I don’t get it. You barely know me, but you’re out to get me. You had me seriously doubting myself, you know that? But it’s you. You have some fucking issue and you’ve decided to target me, and I’m not leaving here now until you tell me what your stupid problem is.”
One of her eyebrows lifted slightly.
“Well, I didn’t like being stalked and harassed and then insulted in my own garden, for one,” she said breezily. My blood was back to boiling.
“Your garden? It’s a communal garden!” I cried.
“Nevertheless, I felt unsafe,” she said, lifting a haughty chin up in the air.
“You’re trying to provoke me. At no point did I threaten you, at no point was anything inappropriate, you’re just crazy…”
“Oh sure, crazy,” she blurted. “Call the woman who calls you out on your bullshit crazy… well, go on, what are you gonna do about it?” she said and held her arms out wide.
“Do about it? Are you… this is insane. And what bullshit have you called me out on? You couldn’t just come and speak to me directly, you had to write a review? And spin this whole story about trauma and whatever? It doesn’t make any sense.”
At that moment I caught sight of a large purple and yellow mark trailing all the way up one of her arms and blooming out onto her neck and shoulder. At the center, like the stamens of some gruesome flower, were a series of nasty, blood red scabs and scrapes.
“Wait …is that from the class?” I asked. I was genuinely surprised to see such a serious wound on a civilian.
She didn’t answer at first, but after taking a deep breath, she shrugged and caught my eye again. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have guessed she was slightly embarrassed.
“The whole ‘trauma story’ isn’t a fucking story, let’s just leave it at that,” she said quietly. I was relieved that she hadn’t sustained such a hideous mark in my class, but all of a sudden horrified at where else she might have gotten it. My mind flashed to the poorly concealed black mark she had on her face the day of the class, although that had since faded.
“Shit. I’m so sorry,” I said.
The night all around us was eerily calm and still. She shrugged again and forced a tight little smile.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But it… it looks like it’s bleeding. Kate, do you need help?”
She hugged her arms closer to her body and scoffed at the suggestion.
“God no. I’m done expecting other people to take care of me, that’s kind of why I joined up for your class. Because I wanted to take care of myself.”
The wind now kicked right out of my sails; I stood there for a moment like an idiot, not really having prepared to be the one apologizing. From the second I met her she seemed to be a mean, man-hating pain in the butt and now, seeing the likely reason why, I was starting to think that banging down her door late at night might not have been the best move.
“Be honest. Why did you leave those reviews?”
She lowered herself onto the sofa and stared at nothing.
“Revenge?” she said.
My mind boggled.
“You barely know me. Revenge for what?”
“I don’t know, maybe life isn’t fair, huh? Ma
ybe you don’t have to do anything to get punished for it. Maybe you could take one for the team…”
I tried to stay calm.
“The team?”
“Oh, don’t feel so sorry for yourself. You’re just mad that I can see what you really are.”
“And what’s that?”
“A bully.”
My ears rang.
“Men like you like to pretend that you’re not doing what you’re doing. You saw that mark on my face and you targeted me. Admit it. Admit why you really asked me out. It’s taken me a long time to see it, but I understand now that for men like you, there’s no such thing as love or romance or trust. It’s only a game for you. Other people are just there to use, to win, to possess. To beat.”
“Woah woah woah, this is insane. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“See? You won’t even admit it.”
“Admit what?”
“That you singled me out because you thought I was weak somehow. Because you thought you had a better chance with me than with a woman who had a better self-esteem. Fuck, I don’t know how you guys do it, but you always know. It’s like you can smell the desperation,” she said and laughed cynically to herself.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if you must know, I asked you out because I thought you were pretty and seemed interesting. That’s it. I don’t know what crazy stories you’re telling yourself, but it’s been a while for me, and I’m just trying to put myself out there and meet people. That’s all. Don’t try and drag me into whatever drama you have—”
“It’s been a while for you? Bullshit.”
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. I threw my hands in the air.
“Ok, I give up. This is clearly not about me. I’m sorry about whatever asshole did that to you…” I gestured towards her bruised arm, “but that’s not on me. If you have it in your head that I’m some sort of bad guy, fine, but—”
“Did you have to kill any puppies in your Navy SEAL training?” she blurted.
“What?”
“I read it online. That they give you a puppy and make you raise it and then force you to kill it to make sure you’re tough enough.”
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. It was ridiculous, even though it wasn’t the first time I’d had that stupid question thrown my way.
“Yeah, sure Kate, I passed the puppy killing module a few years back. I even got a distinction!”
She scowled at me.
You know, every SEAL is trained not just physically, but mentally too. There are specific exercises and routines we go through as recruits to literally reshape the way our brains perceive fear. I’d been taught to withstand capture and extensive torture if necessary. I knew how to breathe in anticipation of drowning, how to wriggle out of being garroted and how to speak conversational Arabic. But sweet fuck I had absolutely no idea how to deal with the woman standing in front of me.
I had come over here hell bent on showing her she had messed with the wrong man, but seeing her like this, in her damn pajamas, all sleepy and …I don’t know, I just didn’t have it in me to be that mad at her. The woman was clearly more upset than an idiot like me could manage, and to be honest, I was beginning to regret coming over here.
“But you’ve killed people? Have you ever killed any innocent people?”
“Frankly, I am under no obligation to share details of my past missions with you.”
“So you have!” she said and scowled some more. What happened next happened so quickly I wasn’t even sure it happened at all. But I’m no idiot. I saw it: she glanced down at my crotch. It was a micro second glance, sure, but she looked. I smiled internally.
“Kate, I’m going to ask you again, why did you really write that second review? Did you want me to come over here…?”
Her face went pale.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I wrote it so no other women would accidentally go to your class…”
“Because I’m such an evil guy?”
“You were standing in the bushes and watching me for God’s sake. What kind of a pervert does that?”
I rubbed my face.
“This business is important to me. I don’t understand why you won’t just take them down. You’re so convinced I’m a bad guy, what could I possibly do to prove to you otherwise?”
“Scar cream,” she said and shrugged.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I said scar cream. You could get me a fresh tube, I keep running out. I’m trying to get the edges of this thing healed up without too much fuss.”
“It… uh… it was kind of a hypothetical question,” I said, dazed.
“Well, ok. I’ll take them down then. Hypothetically.”
“Are you serious right now?” I said, and felt like it was the millionth time I’d said it today.
She avoided eye contact. It was worse than negotiating with a terrorist.
“There’s no way in hell I’m buying you… scar cream,” I said with a frown.
“Fine.”
“Ok, fine.”
She looked again. Longer this time but now there was no denying. This insane woman was checking me out.
I left her house more confused than when I went in. How the hell had I gotten myself involved in such a strange, weird mess? I hated this kind of drama. I couldn’t explain it. I was always the levelheaded one. Hell, I was usually the voice of reason on our team for almost every mission, I never lost my cool and I certainly never allowed myself to be pushed around and blackmailed by some emotionally volatile woman. And yet… somehow when I was around her I was completely unable to have a levelheaded conversation with her.
I paced the house a bit before forcing myself back to bed so I could squeeze in a little sleep before morning. What the hell did you have to do to a person to get a wound like that on their shoulder?
I fell asleep. And dreamt of her again.
Chapter 10 - Kate
I used to think that Derek was the one person in the world who hated my guts the most. But over the years I was realizing something more uncomfortable: nobody hated me more than I hated myself. Derek only did to me in real life what I did to myself mentally each second of every day. Sometimes I imagined that my self-hate had conjured him up from thin air, like a bad magic spell. In any case, it was days like this where I became paranoid that all of this awful stuff about me was visible to others.
I sat in the interview room in a tasteful charcoal grey skirt suit and modest heels, subdued makeup and a can-do hairstyle. I was answering all the questions the interviewer posed to me with a calm poise I had practiced for hours in the mirror the day before. My resume was up to date, honest and sufficiently impressive for this position. Everything was going smoothly.
The woman across the desk from me set her documents aside and suddenly got a serious look on her face. I took a deep breath and prepared for her to ask me why I had moved at all, why I had abandoned my family and come looking for a job here of all places, and why now.
“Kate, I was unsure about whether to mention this to you during the interview, but I thought I’d give you a chance to explain yourself…” she said and laced her fingers together thoughtfully.
“ALS Marketing received an …anonymous call this morning from someone expressing concerns over your suitability for this position. I won’t bother to repeat what was said but I have to say that it has raised some unease about your application.”
My blood froze cold in my veins. I struggled to form words.
“A… you say an anonymous call?” I sputtered, my brain scrambling to understand.
“Now, I certainly am very pleased with what you’ve shown us in interviews, I’ve made that clear, and our follow up with your references shows nothing at all to be concerned with…”
“I think it’s my ex,” I blurted. She gave me a look that was hard to decipher.
“There’s no …the call is just intended to sabotage me. There are no concerns, the call is just
…he’s just being malicious, you see he’s done this before, and there’s really no problem…”
“Miss Limburgh, please, I understand. I gathered as much. But I need you to understand, the fact of his calling at all is a problem.”
I looked at her.
“We’re a small company, Miss Limburgh, and to be frank with you I’m loathe to employ people who may bring disruptions to the workplace. While you have my sympathies regarding any …personal issues, we’ve just had to deal with this kind of thing in the past and it doesn’t make sense for us, from a business point of view.”
“So… you won’t hire me because of that call?” In the time it took me to say the sentence, all the hope and optimism I had gathered this morning in getting dressed and ready for this interview collapsed and crumbled to nothing. He had won. Again. All my energy focused on the supremely difficult task of making sure the interviewer didn’t know how close I was to crying.
“Well, we’re interviewing several people at the moment, and there are a few other very well qualified candidates. You’re a good fit, Miss Limburgh, but I do hope you understand our reservations.”
I don’t know exactly what happened next but somehow I shook her hand and found my way out into the lobby again, where the receptionist assured me with a sunny smile that they would be in touch should I make the shortlist. I smiled back, feeling numb, and went to cry in my car.
The things I had taken weeks to build up towards could be destroyed by him with a single phone call. I felt so exhausted, so miserable I couldn’t summon the energy to turn the ignition and pull away. There was no chance in hell they were ever going to call me back. This was it. Another dead end and all I could do was sob.
But, like they have a million times before, my tears dried and I realized that feeling sorry for myself wasn’t going to help me one bit. That woman in the building certainly didn’t care, and there was no police officer in the world who would bother with a random threatening phone call that I could never prove had anything to do with Derek. Nope, I had to do it by myself.
