The Morning After the Interview
I woke to my phone vibrating non-stop. Notifications flooded in—messages, tags, mentions. I'd been offline during the interview, but now the full force of the internet had found me.
Most of it was supportive:
You're so brave. Thank you for speaking your truth.
That prosecutor is a monster for going after you.
#JusticeForMia
But mixed in were the darker ones:
Murderer. You deserve prison.
Two killers pretending to be heroes.
Hope you rot in a cell.
I turned the phone off, my hands shaking.
"Don't read those," Dante said from the doorway. He was already dressed, looking exhausted. "They're not worth it."
"How can you just ignore them?"
"Years of practice." He sat beside me on the bed. "When you've been called a monster as many times as I have, the words start to lose meaning."
"I'm not like you. I'm not used to being hated."
