Chapter 12
The apartment was quiet except for the refrigerator cycling on and off.
I sat on the floor beside the coffee table with my laptop open, the promotional link copied into three different documents. Each version showed the same invitation to watch the drama series, but the destination had changed twice. The wording around it had changed more often. Every edit made the campaign sound less like an invitation and more like a warning meant for one person at a time.
Me.
Titus sat across from me on the couch. He hadn't touched the coffee I'd made. He kept his hands folded between his knees, giving me the space I'd asked for without pretending the silence didn't matter.
The staff member's testimony had confirmed what we already suspected: the campaign had been tracking individualized access and sending different viewers different follow-up pages. It hadn't proved that the unnamed woman had personally changed every link. It had proved she still controlled the final narrative.
I stared at the screen until the letters blurred.
“There’s something I never told you,” I said.
Titus lifted his eyes. “Do you want me to listen or ask questions?”
The question made my throat tighten. “Listen first.”
He nodded.
I closed the laptop. The soft click sounded too final.
“Before the campaign became public, she asked me to help with the language.” I rubbed my thumb along the edge of the computer. “Not the whole campaign. Just the personal parts. She said the audience needed to understand the emotional stakes, and she knew I could write in a way that sounded honest.”
Titus didn't move.
“I gave her phrases from conversations we’d had. Things I’d said when I was scared. Things I thought were staying between us.” I looked down at my hands. “She promised they would be used as background. Draft material. I didn’t know she’d turn them into captions and warnings.”
“What did you think the link was doing?”
“A private test. A small audience. I thought I was helping her see whether the story made sense before it went live.”
My face felt hot. “When the first version circulated, I recognized my words. I knew people would assume they belonged to the character, not me, so I said nothing. Then she told me that if I objected, everyone would think I was unstable or bitter. She said I had agreed to help.”
Titus's expression changed only slightly, but I saw the muscle move in his jaw.
“I did agree to help,” I said. “That’s the part I was afraid to say. I gave her material. I trusted her with it. I didn't give her permission to use me this way, but I knew enough to recognize my own language when it appeared.”
“You were embarrassed.”
“I was ashamed.” The correction came out sharper than I intended. “I thought people would say I was responsible because I should have known better. And maybe they’d be right.”
“No,” Titus said.
I looked at him.
“You made a choice to help with a draft. She made a choice about how to use it. Those aren’t the same choice.”
I wanted to accept that immediately. Instead, I shook my head. “You don’t know everything.”
“I know you’re telling me what you do know.”
“There are parts involving other people that I won't explain.” I forced myself to keep going. “Some of the conversations weren’t mine alone. I won’t identify who said what, and I won’t give you details that could expose them. I also don’t know who made each technical change to the link. I know she controlled the campaign’s public direction. I don’t know whether she personally edited every page or instructed someone else to do it.”
Titus leaned back, absorbing each limit instead of reaching through it.
“Okay,” he said.
The simplicity unsettled me. “That’s all?”
“That’s all I’m entitled to say right now.” He paused. “I can still ask what you need from me.”
I let out a breath that shook on the way out. “I need you not to speak for me. Even if the story gets worse.”
“I won’t.”
“And if I tell you to stay out of a conversation, I need you to stay out unless someone is in immediate danger.”
His eyes held mine. “I can do that.”
The apartment seemed larger after he said it. Not safer exactly. Just less crowded by the things I had refused to name.
I opened the laptop again and created a new document. At the top, I typed: PUBLIC STATEMENT—FACTS ONLY.
For several minutes, I wrote nothing.
Then I began.
“I contributed private draft language to the campaign before the promotional material was released. I understood that contribution to be limited and preparatory. I did not authorize the use of personal statements as targeted warnings or individualized campaign content.”
I stopped and read it twice.
Titus didn't lean over to see. “Do you want me to read it?”
“Yes.”
I turned the laptop toward him. He read slowly, without reaching for the keyboard.
“What can you prove?” he asked when he finished.
“The original messages. The dated draft. The first version of the link. The later redirects. The access records the reporter received. And the staff member’s account.”
“Then separate those from what you believe.”
I added a second paragraph.
“The original link directed viewers to a promotional page for the series. Later versions changed the destination and displayed different language to different users. The access records and staff testimony establish that the campaign tracked individualized visits and altered the route. I cannot state who performed every technical edit. I can state that the changes occurred within a campaign whose public narrative was controlled by the unnamed woman.”
My fingers hovered over the next line.
“The campaign used my words to make fear appear like entertainment.”
I deleted it.
“That’s true,” Titus said.
“It’s also interpretation.”
“Then label it as your experience.”
I considered the sentence and typed instead: “For me, the effect was to turn private fear into promotional material.”
That stayed.
At the bottom, I wrote what I would not provide: names of uninvolved people, private conversations that belonged to others, and claims unsupported by records or firsthand knowledge.
When I finished, Titus said, “This sounds like you.”
I looked at the statement. It was plain, almost painfully plain. No accusation dressed as certainty. No apology for being used. No version of the past written in someone else’s voice.
“I don’t know if people will believe it.”
“They may not.”
The honesty hurt less than reassurance would have.
I saved the document under my name, not under the campaign title. Then I made a copy for the reporter.
Titus stood, finally picking up his cold coffee and carrying it to the sink. Before he turned on the faucet, he looked back at me.
“Do you want me beside you when you release it?”
I thought about the link, the shifting pages, and the way every version had tried to make my silence look like consent.
“Beside me,” I said. “Not in front of me.”
He nodded. “Beside you.”
I sent the statement to the reporter.
May you like
The confirmation appeared beneath the email, small and ordinary. I read it once, then closed the laptop.
For the first time, the next words would come from me.
