At least I didn’t get more than verbal harassment. The strength and apparently growing predominance of people who wanted peace, even if it was just so they could rebuild or whatever, heartened me, though.

So, I suppose, I didn’t mind it at all.

There were three messages on my cell – they let us have them again, but I now kept mine turned off, so I wouldn’t get accused of anything. One was from Kanesha, saying she was going to be studying late. One was from Sarlac, asking if he could do anything at all to help. The third.

The third was hate mail.

How had they gotten my number? I hoped they hadn’t also sent it to Kanesha, given the racist and homophobic content.

How had they gotten my number? I’d have to change it after this, I supposed, as annoying as that was. Not until it was over…I didn’t want to have to do it multiple times.

It was my fault for making a target of myself.

It ended with ‘You should have died in that hospital.’

Yeah, they knew too much about me. But they also hadn’t disguised their voice. It was vaguely familiar. Male.

I ran through names and seized on a possibility…a photographer who’d hit on me despite being nearly fifty. Ugh. That explained how he got the number, although he might hand it to his friends.

I made sure not to delete it in case I needed it to get a restraining order. Then I called the agency, informed them I wasn’t working with him again and telling them exactly why.

He hadn’t called Kanesha as well, as a quick text exchange confirmed. Which only meant he didn’t have her number.

I knew there would be more, but when I got home, somebody had slipped a letter under my door.

It was a note of support. I didn’t know how whoever had sent it – it was as anonymous as the horrid voice mail message – had found my address.

Ups and downs. That was the way things were. But maybe I could do some small thing for the people who couldn’t…

Couldn’t what? I couldn’t escape this while Kanesha lived and we were together. We might stay together for the rest of her life.

We might not. I wasn’t stupid enough to think that a teenaged relationship would necessarily get a happily ever after. Especially this one.

I was hopeful enough to know it might. But this was important to everyone who wanted to break the rules.

I was, perhaps, trickster enough to care about that.