Page 29 of The Fall Risk

“Go inside. Right now.”

I immediately started climbing out. “What happened?”

“Just get in the apartment. Is Seth with you?”

“Yes—”

“Good. Take him with you.”

Seth was already following my lead, looking worried. The second we got in my door, I bolted it. I put her on speaker. “I’m inside, tell me.”

“Someone made a video. You’re in it.”

“What?”

“I think it was the downstairs neighbor or something? It’s viral. It’s about the missing stairs and how you guys set up on the landing. The address is on the building. There’s a clip of you sitting in a beach chair . . .”

My stomach tanked.

“I DM’d her asking if she can take it down, but she didn’t reply,” Izzy said.

Seth was already heading to the door.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Stay inside,” he said.

He grabbed the ladder, fed it down to the ground level, and was gone in less than thirty seconds.

I peered out the window and watched him disappear under the landing, heard him knocking on the door of the apartments under us. Muffled talking.

I closed the blinds and sat at my little dining room table. I was shaking.

“Look,” Izzy said. “The chances that he saw it are small. I’m sure that guy’s not sitting around watching Reels.”

“That’s not even the point,” I said, putting my forehead in my hand.

The point was that I lived in fear. Some silly video that I would have laughed at two years ago was about to give me a panic attack.

The point was that I couldn’t enjoy my life.

I was furious at the system that allowed this. The law enforcement and courts that didn’t protect me, the mental health support systems that weren’t in place to help George before he became who he was, the society that told me my job as a woman was to smile and be nice to a man who gave me the creeps until it went on so long it turned into this.

And I was so tired.

Sick to death of living this way.

There was such a real part of me that wanted him to find me. Wanted to get it over with one way or the other because I was so done being afraid.

I hung up with Izzy. When Seth came back five minutes later, he was limping.

He’d taken his boot off for the pool; then he’d climbed up and down a ladder on his injured, unprotected ankle. It was already so bruised, and now he’d probably exacerbated it. I felt bad that he’d been running around on it for me.

I felt bad for all of this.

“They took the video down,” he said. “I explained everything, they were very understanding.”

“Let me get you some ice,” I said, getting up to grab a sandwich bag. “I can’t believe you went down a ladder on that.”