if this is it?”
“A lot of people think it is.”
“I know. What I’m saying, I guess, in a really long, round
about way so that I don’t offend you because I feel like we
know each other, but I know that we actually don’t if you go
strictly by time, and now I’m nervous about saying it…”
Adalynn sat quietly, not offering Cassia any relief. She’d
started the whole thing, and now she had to finish it.
“Okay. So, if you didn’t make the videos and you didn’t
really care about doing photos, or even if you did, but it
stopped mattering to you what people thought because you
trained yourself or talked yourself out of that, or if you wanted
to start a brand-new social media following, couldn’t you just
do that? As someone who wasn’t the person you used to be. I
just don’t think you’re being fully honest with yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“No one asks you the tough questions because they don’t
know you. You don’t open yourself up to them like you’ve
opened up to me. I don’t mean to make it sound like I know
you that well, so I don’t want to say that for sure. I know
there’s a lot of room for error in what I’m saying, so I’m not
saying it like it’s a hard and fast thing, but if people knew you
were a lesbian, would that really impact your late husband’s
work and reputation that much? Wouldn’t people just hate you
only and pity him more? Isn’t most publicity good publicity in
the end? At least if you don’t care if you’re on the receiving
end of being slammed by assholes out there? I know there are
a great many, but I also know there are a ton of good people
too. If you just deleted your social media accounts and said,
‘fuck it’ and moved on, would that really be the worst thing