Follow Me Back (complete first draft of the published book)

Chapter 11: Penance

Chapter 11: Penance

Eric tore his eyes away from the message thread and looked out the limo window at the darkened landscape, but his mind remained fixed on the conversation he'd just been re-reading. Why had he been so set on going after that girl? He couldn't even remember. The ugliness of his messages made him shudder now, just thinking about them. "He would flick you off with the back of his fingernail. . . ."

It obviously wasn't true - at least not the part that came after that. "Then he'd forget you ever existed and go about his day." What a joke. After he'd closed the Twitter app this morning, he'd made it a point not to look at his phone again all day, but bits and pieces of their conversation kept springing to his mind. He couldn't shake the memory, or the ever-deepening sense of self-disgust he felt as a result.

What had he been thinking? He remembered the anger driving him at the time. He'd texted her like a man possessed, tapping out new messages as swiftly as he could move his finger - not even thinking about the words. Just DM after DM, each one more hateful than the last. It had gone on like that until that one thing she said: "So according to you, Eric sucks. And I suck. And basically everyone sucks except for you. Do I have that right?"

He'd sat there trying to formulate another scathing retort, but something about her words had taken the bluster out of him. He could only watch as she added on a flurry of rapid-fire messages afterward.

You know there's a word for that. . . .

It's called projection. . . .

I bet you have no idea what that even is. . . .

You should look it up sometime. . . .

You know, when you're not "super busy" attacking random strangers.

It had hit him like a bucket of ice water over the head when she said that last one. Attacking random strangers.  He couldn't deny the charge.  Here he was, consumed with fear that some random stranger might come out of the woodwork and attack him - and he'd turned around and done the exact same thing.

He hadn't even realized what he'd done until she said it. He'd slipped into attack mode so easily. It was just twitter after all. Just words. Not real.

But that was a real person on the other end, wasn't it? A real person who obviously wasn't as mindless as he'd painted her to be. She seemed like she might have half a brain, actually. "Projection," she'd said. "You should look it up sometime."

Maybe he should, he thought. Maybe that was his penance. Go look up "Projection" like she said, and maybe then he'd feel less horrible about himself.

He tapped the word into his phone now and pulled up a Wikipedia page.

Projection

A psychological phenomenon first described by Sigmund Freud, in which the individual denies his/her own negative qualities while ascribing them to others.

Eric could feel his eyes glazing over already after the first sentence. He'd never had much patience for homework. He hadn't even bothered finishing high school. Once he had his record deal, there hadn't seemed like much point. Had he completely lost the ability to comprehend an English sentence?

He ran his eyes down the page, searching for something that sounded less academic.

OK. Practical examples. That's more like it.  He clicked open the section and started to skim.

Blaming the victim . . . .  

Justifying infidelity . . . .

Bullying . . . .