The List: A Novel

Content Warning: This section contains descriptions of suicide and attempted suicide.

Michael goes to Ola’s flat to tell her about @mirrorissa92 and Jackie. The conversation causes painful memories for Ola, who remembers seeing Jackie’s name on Michael’s locked screen and reading her comments on his Instagram.

At that time, Ola visited @jackie_ayyx and discovered Jackie’s naturally voluptuous body. Going through Michael’s phone, she saw the “flirtatious messages” and sexual pictures that they exchanged. A fight ensued, with Michael claiming that he and Ola weren’t “official” and that he wasn’t seeing Jackie “seriously.” After Ola and Michael started to have “issues,” Michael and Jackie restarted their online connection but never met physically.

Now, as Ola hears about the online reconciliation for the first time, she is livid. She dismisses Michael’s apologies and wishes that he and Jackie had had sex for a second time to make the transgression less ambivalent.

On an early date, Michael stated his intention to make Ola happy. Ola replied that he could do so by not embarrassing her or making her look dumb. Now, Ola decides that Michael isn’t her problem anymore, and neither is Womxxxn, so when Kiran calls her, she ignores the phone.