Chapter Five

CAL

McMonster: Still alive?

oBITCHuary: Just barely.

McMonster: Reassuring.

oBITCHuary: You sound disappointed. How is my beloved NYC?

McMonster: Same way you left it. That bad?

oBITCHuary: Worse, actually.

McMonster: What happened to take you back there anyway?

oBITCHuary: My father passed away.

oBITCHuary: Sorry I didn’t say anything. It just seemed…well, honestly, I’m really raw right now. Just typing it out and facing this as my new reality is difficult. But it wasn’t a surprise. He’d been sick for a while.

McMonster is typing…

McMonster is deleting…

McMonster is typing…

McMonster is deleting…

McMonster: Sorry for your loss.

This was a very weird response from McMonster, who was usually so attuned to my feelings I sometimes suspected I was being catfished by a female therapist. I’d been speaking to him almost every day since I’d signed up to the androphobia forum some years ago. My actual therapist had thought it was a good idea for me to talk to people who shared my experience and dread of men, but as it turned out, it was just this specific person I clicked with.

My fears felt intimate, too private to share with strangers. But the thing about McMonster?

He didn’t feel like a stranger at all.