“What were you like, as a child?” I ask weakly.
“I was prone to outbursts, periods of depression. Fits of rage,” he says as he returns to his seat. “But I never hurt anyone the way I’d been hurt. I did, oftentimes, hurt myself.”
“Do you think the abuse you endured made you desperate for the approval and love and adulation of others?”
“Yes.” He leans forward, resting his arms on the table. “And that’s why I started a cult.”
I blink, glancing at the recorder, making sure I got that on tape.
“You—”
“I’m taking your uninspired line of questioning to its most reductive conclusion,” he replies, a hint of contempt in his eyes. “Do you feel defined by your trauma, Lo? Or that other people define you by your trauma?”
“This isn’t about me.”
“Your scar tells a story whether you want it to or not.”
I bring my hand to my face as soon as he says it, ashamed of myself for doing it. He finishes his coffee and stands, setting the empty mug on the counter before facing me.
“Do you define yourself by your trauma?” he asks.
I hesitate, then look to my notebook, trying to figure out how to redirect the interview back to where it needs to be—not what he wants it to be.
“You’re not interviewing me,” I tell him for the second time.
“What if we were having a conversation?” he asks. “If you want this profile to be worth anything, you have to give something of yourself to it.”
“Then no,” I say flatly. “I don’t.”
“Really? How much of what you do or say or want is filtered through what you’ve been through?” He moves to me, putting his finger beneath my chin, tilting my scar toward the light. “And how much of what you’ve been through determines what you do or say, whether or not it’s what you truly want?”
I swallow, aware that he must feel it.
“I do or say whatever I want.”
He lowers his hand.
“You don’t drive.”
“I can drive.”
“But you don’t,” he says. “Casey noticed something interesting about you.”
“And what was that?”
“You rarely look at the road. You keep your eyes on your hands or you track the journey on your phone—you might look up now and then, but only if you can bring yourself to do it.”
He searches for the truth of this on my face and I can feel it there, in spite of myself, hating that everything he said is real.
I keep my mouth closed.
“There was so much I cut myself off from for fear of my mother’s reprisal. I was constantly anticipating her abuse, thinking I could prevent it. I used to—” He pauses, his eyes suddenly distant. “I’d walk by a church, in town, and I felt this … pull. I wanted so desperately to step inside. And I knew nothing would make my mother—who felt so abandoned by God, and left to rot by the universe—angrier. I was weak. I yielded to her wrath instead of His Word. So I kept walking past until one day—I couldn’t. God chose me, but I also had to make a choice. I had to let go of all I knew I was at that moment. I had to accept my trauma to release myself from it and as soon as I did that, there was space enough inside for me to receive God’s grace and set me on my path. And now I am beyond that pain, Lo. But you—you live inside yours. You live inside your accident … and you are so afraid of the next.”
I stare down at my notes, furious, the lines of my handwriting blurring into nothingness.
“I’d like you to ask me more interesting questions,” he says.
The one that ends up coming out of my mouth is one I don’t have written down.
“If The Unity Project is for everyone, why did it refuse me?”
“Beyond the fact Bea didn’t want you here?”
I flinch and reach forward, turning off the recorder.
“You can’t join for anybody but God and you can’t join without faith,” he tells me. “Your sister, for example—as much as she was running from all she’d gone through with you, she was also running to God. She had faith.”
I lean back, a bitter taste in my mouth. I stare at the recorder and I can’t believe I’ve already let this get away from me, that I let that wounded little girl take over this entire interview. That I let her howl.
“Do you believe in God, Lo?” he asks after a moment.
“I only believe in things I can see.”
He points behind me.
“Look.”
I turn and find my reflection in a mirror at the other side of the room. Even from here, my scar is visible, a streak of white lightning cutting across my face.
“Denham,” Paul says, stopping at my desk. “Got a minute?”
I glance up from my computer. “What’s up?”
“I’m about to ruin your life.”
“I got news for you, Paul.”
“Funny. Look, everything I’ve got on my calendar this week,” he says, “I need you to cancel and reschedule for two weeks from now.” I stare at him. “Well, most things. Anything involving ads or sponsorships, offer Lauren in my place. If they’re not willing to talk to her, tell them it has to be two weeks from now.”
“If they’re not willing to talk to me, tell them we don’t want their money,” Lauren calls from her desk and Paul grins.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“If you needed to know, you’d know.”
He slips into the office and when I look to Lauren, she’s smiling at her screen because whatever it is, she’s been told. It’s clearly above my pay grade.
“You know,” she says lightly, without looking at me, “while Paul’s doing his thing, you’re going to have to make my coffee.”
At lunch, my phone rings. Ripley’s Auto Repair. My car is ready; all I have to do is drive it out of there. It was Patty’s. A ten-year-old Buick she put in storage as soon as the doctors told her she shouldn’t be on the road anymore. She handed it over to me and told me I’d be a fool not to make use of it and I guess I was; I paid the storage fees and let it rot. It wouldn’t start when I tested it this weekend. An expensive mistake, but now it’s fixed.
I use my lunch break to pick it up, handing over the cash in exchange for the keys. I stand at the driver’s side so long, someone asks me if there’s a problem.
“No problem,” I say faintly.
I press my lips together and reach for the door handle, noticing the tremor in my hand. I fumble it open and get inside, adjusting the seat, putting the keys in the ignition. The sound of the engine coming to life, the feel of it—is terrifying. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I open them and push on the gas. I forget to put the car in reverse, slamming the brakes before I can crash into the garage wall and take Ripley out with it. It earns me some disgusted looks. I turn the radio on and try to focus on the music as I back out, onto the road.
The first car that pulls up behind me makes me want to stop completely and abandon the Buick at the intersection. I fight the instinct to close my eyes. My knuckles ache from their death grip on the wheel. By the time I’ve made it to my apartment, my body is wound so tight, I can barely get out of the car and when I’m finally able, I stand in front of it, staring at my warped reflection in its body, one hand clutching the keys, the other against my cheek, my scar, my heart fluttering weakly in my chest like I just did some brave and wild thing.