LIVING THE DREAM ✅

Nineteen: The offer, the hacker and the stalker

Mitchell was trying to organize her room to make space in case Hannah agreed to move in with them. It broke her heart to say the least upon hearing what Hannah went through. Even when Hannah tried to smile it off, Mitchell could still imagine how horrible it must have felt to be abused by someone she loved.

Her thoughts were cut short when her phone vibrated with an incoming call. She looked at the unknown number and let it continue ringing. It was after it vibrated the second time that she decided to pick it up.

"Is this Mitchell Cooper?" a female voice asked from the other side of the call

Mitchell paused. "Who is asking?"

"Sorry ma'am," the woman said. "I'm calling from Marvelous Studios about your response to our email."

"Your email?" Mitchell was surprised. She hadn't looked at her email in a long time, two days at most, and she didn't remember a certain Marvelous Studios. It sure was a prank, right?

"Yes, ma'am. Our team would like to meet up with you next week if you have time. Are you okay with that arrangement?"

I'm not even sure about what you're talking about, lady! Who even is Marvelous Studios? What do you want with me?

"Ma'am?" the woman called out again. "Is that fine?"

"Can I think about it?" More like can I fucking check my email first to see what the fuck you are talking about!

"Sure, ma'am. Thanks for your time."

And the call was cut.

As soon as the phone beeped, Mitchell rushed to power her laptop. As quickly as she could, she connected to her phone hotspot and logged into her email. For someone who hadn't logged into her email for two days, there was no new email updates.

But rather, a string of opened and replied emails.

Just like that, her heartbeat skyrocketed, her hands sweaty as she refreshed the tab over and over, hoping for a miracle. But alas, her email was hacked.

Whoever hacked the email wasn't clever enough to change the password. However, that didn't stop her from hyperventilating from the fact that someone could have potentially seen every information about her, the smut she wrote, her PayPal payments and too much of other things.

The first thing she did was to change the password. Then, she checked through all the emails from the previous two days. There wasn't much of importance, just a couple of newsletters she signed up to. She was just about to close the open window to call someone who could help to see what harm was done by whoever accessed the email when she noticed that the emails in her sent folder were a little more than she remembered.

Sure enough, there was an email from Marvelous Studios.

With shaky hands, she clicked on the string. Marvelous Studios started by introducing themselves as a small film company based about two hundred miles away and apparently, they'd come across her content trending online. They went ahead and expressed their interest in hiring her as a script writer for their new film - as a smut writer to be specific - and boy, the pay was handsome.

Her smile fell as soon as she saw that someone - that someone not being her - took it upon themselves to reply to the email agreeing to their terms and conditions.

What the fuck is happening?

Too much information, too much confusion, too much to worry about.

Without thinking twice, she closed her laptop, not even bothering to shut it down, ran to her car and drove downtown.

"Mitch!" Austin beamed at her when he saw her enter. "I didn't know you were coming in today."

"Me neither," she sighed. "But, I think my email has been hacked."

Austin's color drained off his face and his mouth opened and closed but no words came out.
"W-what? Why would you say that?"

"Because a film company just called me about an offer I didn't fucking agree to. That's why."

"O-oh. Are you going to take the offer?"

"Are you nuts?" Mitchell scoffed. "I don't know how legit this is! This could be scam for all I care!"

"But, it's a good offer," Austin blurted out, not realizing what words just came out of his mouth. But as soon as he did, he paled even more and covered his mouth with his hands

"What. Did. You. Just. Say?" Mitchell's face went closer to Austin's with each word, the tips of her ears reddening from anger. "How do you know about the offer? You fucking hacked into my email? Why?"

Austin leaned backwards till his head hit the wall behind him.
"I swear I didn't," he squeaked, his hands raised in surrender. "I didn't hack into your email. I would never."

Mitchell scoffed. "Oh, really? Then why the fuck do you know about an offer that I didn't know about till twenty minutes ago?"

"I...we...my boss... remember when you asked me if the wifi here is private? It is not. All the computers here share the same server, so, one can easily see what the other is doing.

"I accidentally landed on your email as I looked through customer history and believe me, I didn't want to look."

"But you did."

"Yes, I did," Austin nodded. "I saw the email from Marvelous Studios and I know their short films because they are popular on TikTok and thought you'd like it because it would be such a great offer to work with them and stuff-"

Mitchell sighed and breathed out.
"It didn't cross your mind to tell me at least? Looking through my emails is one thing but replying to an email and you don't even tell me? What the fuck! How do I know that it's just me you're doing this shit too?"

"I didn't read the other emails, I swear. The one from Marvelous was on top and it was the only unread one. Another user must have done so."

"That still doesn't excuse you from invading my privacy, Austin. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were stalking me."

It was Austin's turn to have his mind blown away.
"W-what?"

"Think about it. You just were randomly singing out of my window in the middle of the night. Not once, but twice. Now, you're just randomly accessing my email? You think that's normal?"

"Mitch-"

"You're so full of shit Austin," she sneered at him. "Instead of accessing customers' private information, why don't you and your fucking boss take precautions to protect it instead? Huh?"

"But-"

"Go fuck yourself." And she was gone