Chapter 78
Let’s pretend you are a tiny bronze cockroach, capable of scurrying past a security guard undetected and into a sleek elevator, then agile enough to squeeze through the tiny gap between a door and the floor.
It is dark inside this apartment, so you will use the many light-sensing cells in your eyes to see your way around what looks like the scene of a careless robbery — designer clothes torn, single sneakers divorced from their counterparts, electronics cracked and kitchenware shattered, a smashed bottle of champagne on the floor near the open refrigerator door, an expensive painting with a hole punched through the middle.
You, as a cockroach, might think you’ve had the great fortune of stumbling upon a smorgasbord of rotten food and, hopefully, a dead person’s delicious fingernails. But then you spot a woman, apparently alive, sitting in a corner, surrounded by shredded magazines and stomped citations and broken awards, her face illuminated by laptop light.
If any of your 1 million brain cells are functioning, you will beat a hasty retreat to the bodega down the block, where you were born and where your mother is likely worrying herself sick. But you are a cockroach, and therefore kind of a moron, so you skitter across the room, risking your life to get a closer look at Dee Bradley.
Her red curly hair looks as if she’s forgotten she even has it on her head. Her eyes are swollen and her lips are chapped. She is wearing underpants and an extra-large Sweetbriar College T-shirt that, according to your very sensitive olfactory receptors, smells like body odor and funnel cake. She is drinking vodka and typing something at a furious rate.
You run on your hairy little legs to the windowsill behind her and peer over her shoulder. You worry she might be typing, “all work and no play makes Dee a dull girl,” over and over again. Then you remember that you don’t know how to read.
If you could read, you’d know she was writing a declaration. Or maybe a goodbye.
This world has not been kind to me.
You might find that statement galling, in light of how successful I’ve been. I was a nationally recognized philanthropist and, of course, an astronomically wealthy entrepreneur. I was your hero, your wet dream, your favorite guest on “Ellen,” and the Ted Talker you liked most because I told a sob story while showing off great abs.
But I never told you the whole story. I never told you how truly terrifying my childhood was. That I was sexually terrorized almost every day from the age of eight to 14. I’m not supposed to talk about it, but fuck it. I have so little to lose now. I’ve lost almost everything.
I had no love in my life. And if I couldn’t have it, then I wasn’t going to give it, either. I could not afford to be generous.
Is it any surprise that I developed an eating disorder in an attempt to gain some control over my body and my life? Is it any wonder that I’m angry, impatient, and sometimes depressed? That I stay thorny so people don’t get close enough to hurt me?
I was the one who was abused, not you. You need to understand *me*, not the other way around. You should compensate *me* for all that I suffered. You do not have the right to ask for anything more than what I want to give. I should be allowed to do and get what I want after going without for so long. I am entitled to that.
Is it wrong to want to be loved? To be adored? If I can’t have that, then I’ll take fear — you can fear me.
Or pity me. Do you pity me? You fucking should, you monsters.
It was me versus him, me versus them. You’re with me or you’re against me. So now it’s me versus you. And I have a lot to say.
Everyone has choices to make. Some people who experience the kind of trauma I have, they go out of their way to hurt other people. I get why they’d do that. They want to share their pain. But I didn’t choose that path.
I chose to help. I fed hundreds of homeless people through my nonprofit, Restaurant Run, and the volunteers — the people who picked up the meals and delivered them on foot — improved their cardiovascular health. Everybody won.
And then I created FitFams. And it was the most generous thing I’d ever done.
I invented a workout that allowed you to become thinner, stronger, healthier. I helped you rid yourself of the one thing you believed was holding you back, the one thing you were sure was standing in the way of your happiness: body fat. You decided that was true, not me. I just met your demands.
You told me you loved FitFams, the workout, the culture, and me. I let you in to an exclusive club, and all you had to do in return was remain loyal. To stick to the promises you made when you signed up for an unlimited membership.
You wanted to stop hating yourself. You wanted a sense of belonging. I gave all of that to you. I gave all of me to you. I changed your life.
And in return you gave me grief. The coaches and managers, the people I was kind enough to employ and pay, complained about the money, the hours, the words, the deeds. They wanted a union. They trashed me in public when they should have sung my praises. They should have been grateful — grateful that I invited them into my world.
The clients weren’t any better. They said their bond with me was unbreakable, but as soon as the bad news from Atlanta came out, everyone went running. They left me. Left me with 80 studios and three angry investors. Empty rooms, empty machines. My business is hemorrhaging. I’ve had to sell my personal properties. This one, in New York? I have until the end of the month to get out.
So yeah, the world has not been kind to me.
Maybe you’re wondering what happens now. You don’t get to know. I’ll be out there, somewhere, working on my next idea, my next plan, my next big success.
Because that’s what I do.
I am indestructible, you fucking cowards.
You can’t stop me.
From your perch on the windowsill you will begin to think there might be a kinship between you, the small-but-mighty cockroach, and this disheveled woman on the floor. (After all, you can regenerate limbs and survive forces that are over 900 times your body weight without suffering any harm.) So you decide it’s safe to inch closer to her, to touch her dirty and bare foot with one of your tickling antennae as a way to say, “I understand you.”
She sees you there. Does a look pass between you? She slowly removes her computer from her lap and leans toward you. She reaches out a hand, perhaps to invite you to climb aboard.
And then she slams her palm down on your body and grinds you into the floor.